Aftermath
by Sophia Hawkins
Summary: A follow-up story to "Violation". "Lose something?" Voight cynically asked as he held the door open. Kelly Severide was wide eyed and looked close to panic, and demanded to know, "Where's Casey?" "Follow me," Voight said with a slight nod. Severide stepped in the house and followed after Voight as he asked, "What happened? Is he okay?"
1. Chapter 1

Aftermath

Hank Voight heard the sound of somebody knocking on his front door downstairs. It was after midnight and though he hadn't been to bed yet, he was definitely _not_ anticipating any visitors. So, he did what he always did when somebody made an unannounced arrival in the middle of the night, he went downstairs with his shotgun in hand, ready to use it if he had to. The knock was persistent but not particularly strong, like somebody determined but lacking the strength to rap on the door with full force. Voight reached the bottom of the stairs, drew back the curtain on the door, and couldn't believe who he saw standing outside. He reached over, hit the porch lights, leaned his shotgun against the wall, unlocked the door and pulled it open.

"Matt."

Lieutenant Matt Casey of Firehouse 51 stood on Voight's porch, his eyes wide but simultaneously looked like he was about to drop from exhaustion. He slowly drew back his hand from where he'd been hitting the door and looked at the Intelligence sergeant uncertainly.

"Voight," he responded hesitantly.

The last time Matt Casey was on his doorstep, he'd knocked Voight flat on his ass. The _only_ person who'd ever been simultaneously ballsy and stupid enough to even think of such a thing, though Voight would never admit it to anybody, he'd been able to respect Casey for that. Any guy willing to go off on a suicide junket to try and protect his family, you _had_ to respect his guts.

Voight had brought Justin home on a bender enough times to know Casey had been drinking, the smell wasn't overwhelming and he probably hadn't had anything to drink for a few hours, but he could tell. He looked past Casey out to the street, but he didn't see Casey's pickup anywhere.

"How'd you get here, Casey?" he asked with more than just slight concern as he held the door open.

"I dunno," Casey replied as he inched past the door, "can I come in?"

Voight didn't stop him. He let Casey get in the front hall and he closed the door and turned to the Truck lieutenant.

"Are you alright, Matt?" he asked.

Casey let out a slow exhale and shook his head, "I don't know."

"Were you in an accident?" Voight asked. He hit the light switch and glanced over the blonde man for any obvious injuries.

"No," Casey shook his head.

Voight grabbed Casey's jacket and jerked it off of him in one quick movement, _he'd_ be the judge of that. He put his hands on Casey and more or less forced him to turn to every side while he checked him over, he saw no blood, no bruises, no indication Casey had been injured either in an accident or otherwise. He did however notice that Casey's hair was messed up and his clothes looked like they'd been hastily thrown on, it looked like he'd jumped right out of bed and wandered over there.

"What happened tonight, Casey?" he asked, hoping he'd be able to find the answer relatively quickly.

Matt looked at him, and for the first time his eyes actually seemed to focus, his body language gave some indication he knew where he was and what was going on. With a wide eyed expression that reeked of sheer terror, he told Voight, barely able to put the words together, "I woke up and he was on top of me." He swallowed hard and added, "He put a knife to my throat."

"Who?" Voight asked.

Casey didn't seem to hear him, he continued, "He said he'd kill me if I fought him."

" _Who_?" Voight asked again.

Casey looked straight ahead and answered, "Harris Cardoza."

That's what Voight thought. It had been several months since anybody had heard that name. Months since Casey had been the victim of a horrible attack. Voight had used his leverage in Intelligence to unofficially extend his men into the investigation to find Casey's rapist, and Antonio had been the one to make the collar. Months since that son of a bitch had been arrested, months since he was supposed to appear at a preliminary hearing... _months_ since a 911 call had been made about a disturbance at Cardoza's house, which revealed his blood all over the floor, more than he could've lived without. Though no body had ever been found, that had pretty much been that, case closed, and it had seemed that everybody involved could move on with their lives. _Almost_. Voight hadn't had any direct contact with Casey at that time except for a couple minutes the morning after Cardoza's disappearance, to verify his alibi for the night in question, and there hadn't been any circumstances that required him to speak with the lieutenant since then either. So for Casey to come to _him_ in the middle of the night with this revelation, Voight had no idea what to make of that. But he did have some idea of what to make of _this_.

"Matt..."

"I know," Casey replied, his defeated tone that of a child who didn't need another lecture, "I know it's impossible, I know Cardoza's dead...but when I woke up I would've _sworn_ he was there...I felt his weight on me, I smelled those cheap cigarettes...I could _hear_ his voice..."

Voight nodded in understanding, and he asked Casey, "Is anybody else there tonight?"

Casey slowly shook his head. "Severide went out earlier tonight, he hasn't come back yet."

"Okay, that does it, you're going to stay here tonight," Voight told Casey as he put a hand on his shoulder and guided him towards the living room. "Come on, I'll put you on the couch."

"I'm sorry I got you up," Casey told him.

"You didn't," Voight said.

"I don't know why I came here," Matt said.

"Don't worry about it," Voight told him.

"I just couldn't stay there," Casey said, "and I couldn't think where else to go."

"It's alright," Hank replied, mentally calculating how long Casey must've been walking to get from his place to Voight's house given they weren't anywhere near the same neighborhoods. In his current state of mind, it was a wonder he hadn't gotten himself murdered somewhere between points A and B. _Anything_ could've happened to Casey in the time it took to wander over to his side of the city.

Matt stopped and turned to him, "Hank..."

"Yeah?"

Casey's eyes were wide, a variety of emotions quite readable in them, confusion, hopelessness, he looked truly lost.

"What's wrong with me?" Casey asked. "It's been months since it happened...I thought I was over this."

"Calm down," Voight could see Casey's chest starting to heave as his breathing became frenzied as he spoke.

"What's wrong with me, Hank?" Casey's eyes changed again and he was frantic now, the words practically became a mantra, "What's wrong with me? What's wrong with me? _What's wrong with me_?"

"Casey, calm down!" Voight said as he grabbed Casey's hands just before he hit himself in the head in despair.

Casey collapsed against Voight, still trying to ask that question but the words were broken up between choked breaths as he started crying. Voight let go of Casey's hands and wrapped an arm around the lieutenant's back to steady him.

"Easy, easy," he told the younger man whose breaths came out in pained sobs against his shoulder, "you're alright, it's over, calm down."

Casey couldn't calm down though. He latched onto Voight with all his strength, which right now wasn't much, every breath he sucked in immediately came back out as a sob so quick and frenzied he was bordering on hyperventilation.

"It's okay, it's okay," Voight calmly told the lieutenant as he placed one hand on the back of Casey's head and held him tight, "you're okay, it's alright, take it easy, _breathe_ Casey, you're alright, it's over, he can't hurt you anymore."

A louder sob escaped from Casey's throat as he tightened his hold on Voight like a drowning man trying to cling to a lifeline. Voight in return tightened his own grip until he was about to crush Casey's spine. Hank knew that Matt Casey was as strong of a man as they came, anybody willing to wage a war against him _had_ to be, there were 20 year veterans on the police force who saw every atrocity known to man, who never so much dared look at him the wrong way, this guy came to his home, punched him in the face, knocked him on his ass and was ready to kill him. And Voight knew that was part of the reason why this was so hard for the lieutenant now, to deal with the fact that for all his training, his instincts, his experiences, nothing had prepared him for what happened that night, nothing _could_ , and nothing that he knew how to do any other time he was cornered or threatened, could've done a damn thing to save him.

Oh yes, Hank also recalled the time they rolled up on the crew from 51 when they were rescuing a tagger stuck on a fire escape, he'd seen Casey twirling the Halligan in his hands like a baton, just _waiting_ for Voight to show up, anticipating using it. He remembered Boden had called Severide to get in front of Casey so the situation didn't escalate. Hell, _everybody_ got in front of Casey, because they all knew what he was capable of. He thought he could plan for anything, even when he couldn't, he never accepted the possibility something could be so far beyond his control, but that's exactly what had happened here. Cardoza had had the upper hand, it was Casey's home and he knew the layout like a book, but Cardoza had the element of surprise, however the hell he'd found out about Casey, he had been outside the house waiting for the lieutenant to come home that night, he'd gotten in when Casey forgot to lock the door, and he had brutalized Casey for nobody knew how long, until Severide had walked in on the attack and stopped it.

What happened to Casey really, unfortunately, was not that rare, not in _any_ circumstance. Even when rape was not part of the attack. Voight could only remember all too well having his home busted into by a gang of thugs who kidnapped him and his pregnant future daughter-in-law, beat the hell out of him and left Olive for dead with a plastic bag tied to her head, and he remembered that feeling of utter helplessness when he was tied up and couldn't help her, and she and his grandson would've both died before his eyes, if his men hadn't been able to find him in the nick of time. And for what? As far as reasons went, motive, there were no good ones, there never were, and Voight never paid too much attention to the psychology of rapists, serial killers, he left that to the professionals, he just rounded them up, brought them in, and beat the hell out of them. But as sick as he knew the motive of a rapist was about power and control, he still couldn't balance the scales that killing a pregnant woman and her baby over a safe full of money was any better of a reason. And how many times, the sergeant wondered, how many times did a soldier come back from war in the Middle East, and all his training about how to take out terrorists, enemy soldiers, any perceived threat, did him no good and in his own home town he could easily be shot or stabbed to death by any random punk on the street? They all saw it, all the time, on the job and off.

None of it made any sense, but _this_ , what Casey went through, that was in a field all its own as far as the sheer depravity of the attack went. That was another reason why it had hit him so hard; it was quickly becoming an obsolete stereotype that only women were victims of rape, but society still maintained that men did not think about it happening to them, and there was truth to that, Hank didn't have to know Casey all that well to know that not once in this young man's life did that thought _ever_ occur to him...until it happened. Suddenly nothing made sense anymore, and everything Casey thought he knew had gone out the window, and that was something he was clearly still struggling to come to terms with.

Voight was aware that Casey sounded like he was winding down, and the small spasms that wracked through his body had stopped, maybe he just didn't have enough energy anymore to carry on.

"You're alright, Casey, just calm down," Voight told him as he led Matt towards the couch.

Casey sat down and ran his forearm across his face to wipe away the worst of the tears, he said to Voight in a tired voice, too tired to even sound embarrassed by what had just happened, or in whose company it did, "I...would appreciate it if you didn't tell anyone about this...I don't need everyone to know I'm losing it."

"Casey, you're _not_ losing it." Voight watched as the blonde man snorted and scoffed, and he elaborated, "Think back, how many times over the years you wake up swearing you saw your mom kill your dad?"

Casey looked at him. It was true there was no record anywhere of Casey ever making any such admission, but the look on his face told Voight it was only too true. He hadn't been there when it happened, but that hadn't stopped his mind from inserting him into the middle of the bloodshed a hundred times over the years.

"Now think back, how many times you wake up flashed back to a fire you responded to? The people you saved, the ones you couldn't? It's not that rare, is it?" Voight asked.

"This is different," Casey said.

"No it's not," Voight replied. "It's all traumatic, Casey, and it doesn't just go away, no matter how helpful that would be. _Believe_ me."

Casey looked up at him with tired but wide eyes. Somewhere in the recesses of his mind he started to think maybe there was a _reason_ Voight had still been up when he arrived.

"You stay there," Voight pointed a finger at him, "I'll be back in a minute."

Voight didn't know whether Casey had been drinking earlier that night to drown out the memories of his attack, or if he'd started drinking before it all hit him, either way a little more booze wouldn't hurt him now, especially since he wasn't driving. Hank dug out a bottle of whiskey and poured enough to dull most of Casey's brain cells for the rest of the night, what he needed was a few hours of sleep blissfully void of any dreams or thoughts, and this was the closest way to legally make that happen.

He returned to the living room with the drink in hand, and stopped, and shook his head when he saw Casey was already in a dead sleep, half sitting, half sprawled across the couch. Voight set the glass down and went over to the couch, grabbed Casey under the armpits and laid his body down flat, his head propped on the armrest.

Casey moaned softly in his sleep but otherwise didn't respond whatsoever to Voight moving him, though it was only now Voight realized he was cold to the touch. Again, considering how long he had to be wandering around in the night to get there, with only a flimsy jacket to keep him warm, it shouldn't be any surprise. Voight grabbed the heavy flannel blanket off the back of the couch and draped it over Matt, who after a couple seconds, moaned again in response to the heavy material covering him, and half turned on his side and appeared to curl into a ball where he lay.

Voight looked down at the younger man and shook his head. He didn't have to wonder _who_ did what to him, he knew the name of the bastard who'd attacked Casey, Harris Cardoza, and he knew that it had been impossible for anybody, his crew, the cops working sex crimes, the State's Attorney's office, _anyone_ , to link him back to any other rape victims, even though there was no way this man just woke up one day and decided to target a fireman for the hell of it. He understood it, he knew too well the shame that victims carried around, and why it stopped them from reporting their attacks, and he knew if Casey would've had things his way, that's exactly what would've happened in his case too. Had Casey come to Voight at any time after Cardoza's arrest, and told him he couldn't go through with a trial, Voight would've offered his services to assist the younger man in any way he could, and over the years he'd built up plenty of experience in making problems go away. To his surprise, and that of most of his unit, Casey had pressed on for a trial, he'd gone to court to testify, but Cardoza hadn't shown up, 12 hours later they'd found evidence he had to be dead. Hank himself had gone over to Casey's house the next morning to give him the good news, and verify his and Kelly Severide's alibis for the night in question of course. It had been obvious that Casey didn't have any idea what had happened, his hands were clean. And Voight had hoped that with that newfound revelation, the lieutenant's life would start to get easier. As Casey said earlier, it _had_ been months, so Voight could only presume that Casey had been doing alright until this point, so what happened?

* * *

The clock said it was going on 4 o' clock in the morning, Voight still hadn't been to bed, but over the years he'd gotten used to that. He headed towards the front door and looked out at the headlights shining from the street. It was too dark to make out the car that had just pulled up, but the lights went off and he heard a car door slam shut. He left the porch light off but saw a figure in the dark run up the sidewalk to the porch.

"Lose something?" Voight cynically asked as he held the door open.

Kelly Severide was wide eyed and looked close to panic. "Where's Casey?"

"Follow me," Voight said with a slight nod to the direction he turned.

Severide stepped in the house and followed after Voight, "What happened? Is he okay?"

"I'll let you be the judge of that," Hank said as he walked into the dining room and stopped, pointing to the man asleep on the couch in the next room.

"Casey!" Kelly ran over to the couch, dropped on one knee and pressed down on the blonde man buried under the blanket, still on his side with his back to Severide. Kelly pressed down on Casey's shoulder and shook him to wake him up, but there was no response.

"Casey, are you alright?"

There was a small utterance of a groan from deep within the Truck lieutenant's throat, then in one fluid movement he turned over and jabbed an elbow at Severide, just missing Kelly's face.

"Whoa!" Kelly said as he pinned Casey's arm down as he started to come to. Voight stepped into the room and stood behind Severide, watching as Casey's eyes slowly opened, then shut, then opened again, then he tried to sit up.

Casey's eyes were only half open as he turned to the right and tiredly asked, "Severide?" He looked past Kelly and said, a little more alert, "Voight?" He groggily looked around the room and asked, "What's going on?"

All Voight had to say was, "Go back to sleep, you're dreaming."

Somehow, that worked, Casey groaned and lay his head back against the armrest and closed his eyes, and was out like a light almost instantly.

"What's going on?" Kelly asked the Intelligence sergeant.

"Can I see you in my office?" Voight pointed towards the kitchen.

* * *

Kelly was slightly less frantic as he paced around Voight's kitchen table and explained to the cop, "I get home half an hour ago, Casey's truck is at the curb, the door's unlocked, I go in, he's not there, his phone's there, his wallet's there, it just..."

"Took you back?" Voight asked.

Kelly exhaled and shook his head, "How long's he been here?"

"About four hours," Voight said.

"What?" Kelly turned to him. "Why didn't you tell me sooner?"

"You called me, remember?" Voight asked. "For one thing, I never had your number on my phone, for another, Casey didn't say he wanted you here." There was a brief pause before Voight inquired, "How've things been with you two lately?"

"What's that supposed to mean?"

"Well?"

" _Fine_ ," Kelly answered sharply, "now... _what_ happened to Casey?"

"My guess, rough night," Voight answered. "He flashed back to the night he was attacked...since he was alone, he took off."

"My God," Kelly said half under his breath.

"I still can't figure out how he wound up here," Hank told the Squad lieutenant, "there are about a million different ways he could've been murdered before he ever got here, you know that."

Severide gave a small nod, he knew that.

"So that he got here unscathed, physically, in the mental state he was in, is nothing short of a miracle," Voight told him. "I figured I'd wait and see if you realized he was missing, if not, I was going to take him back in the morning, but there wasn't any way I was letting him go back out there like _that_."

Kelly shook his head and sighed, "Damn it, he'd been doing better."

"This happened before?" Voight asked.

"No, but..." Severide looked to the side as he explained, "he had been having some bad nights a while back. A few times he'd wake up screaming...most times he was still up watching TV when I went to bed, he'd still be there when I came down in the morning."

Hank could see Kelly was mentally kicking himself for this, the Squad lieutenant told the sergeant, "It hadn't happened for weeks, I wouldn't have gone out and left him alone if he had been."

"You're not his keeper, Kelly," Voight told him. "Nobody expects you to hover over him 24/7." He took a step closer to Severide and told him, "Kelly, I know what you did for Matt, it took a lot of guts."

Severide paused, then looked at Voight skeptically, "What do you mean?"

"You walked in on your best friend being raped, you stopped it, you kicked the son of a bitch's ass, you got Casey to the hospital, you called it in, Cardoza would never have been caught if you hadn't stayed on it."

Kelly snorted, "Yeah, lot of good that did."

"Apparently so, _somebody_ was paying attention, _somebody_ took him out," Voight said, "that wouldn't have happened if he hadn't been arrested."

Kelly nodded back towards the living room, "It wasn't enough."

"Nobody said life was fair," Voight replied. "All we can do is aim for close enough, you did something most people could never do."

Kelly looked at him and asked, "Voight...if it had actually gone to trial...what do you think Casey's chances would've been?"

Voight shook his head, "Don't ask me that. Every jury's different, it could've gone either way. At least Casey was spared what the defense would've thrown at him."

Kelly nodded uncertainly. Something came back to him. That first day he ran into Voight after he'd been released from prison.

 _"Just remember, squeakiest wheel always wins around here."_

Kelly could've been knocked over with a feather. He _knew_ that Voight had been let go, but he sure as hell hadn't planned on ever seeing him again.

 _"Looks like it,"_ he'd replied.

Hank had looked at him and asked, _"You're Benny Severide's kid, right?"_

 _"That's right."_ Normally anybody outside of Benny's fishing buddies who knew him as his father's son...those discussions never ended well. This hadn't been one of those conversations, and looking back, Kelly realized why it had stuck out in his mind all these years, what had been so unnerving about it. It had been that grin on Voight's face. Over the years 51 had been forced to join forces with Voight and his unit several times, forced to put history and their bad blood aside, nothing had ever fully been forgiven or forgotten, but over the years they'd all gotten to know Voight a lot better, and this far down the line, Kelly knew that Hank Voight did _not_ by nature grin very much, if at all. But that grin on his face as he responded fondly, _"Oh_ _Benny."_ His eyes lit up like he was on cloud 9 from some memory.

It had never made sense, and though Kelly never thought much of it, now he knew _why_ it didn't make sense. The way Voight said it, and that huge grin on his face as he said it, the only time anybody ever had that look on their face was when they either recalled their best friend or the love of their life. Immediately pushing the latter from his mind, Kelly could still acknowledge even if that ever _had_ been the case, _nobody_ who _used_ to have a thing with Benny would _still_ have any fond memories of him that far down the line, his mom and however many other exes Benny left in the dust were proof enough of that, so that definitely wasn't it. But the first idea didn't make any sense either, whenever Benny popped up in Chicago he could spin yarns all day long about his friends from his smoke-eating days, or whoever else he was still in good company with, Hank Voight's name had _never_ , in the 30-some odd years that Kelly had listened to every glory days story his dad ever told, _ever_ come up one time.

"Voight...how well do you know Benny?" Kelly asked.

And there it was again. Something turned up the light in the sergeant's eyes, the tips of his mouth turned upward in the beginning of a smirk.

"Oh, Benny and I go back," Voight said.

And right there, Kelly knew that was all the further of an answer he was ever going to get on the subject. A lot of things started racing through his mind and he was left with the definite impression he was walking a fine line in a very tangled web. What Voight did or didn't know about the night Cardoza disappeared, he was scared to even try to guess.

"Kelly," Voight broke up the lieutenant's thoughts, "Matt is very lucky to have you for a friend."

Severide shook off the thoughts running around in his head and responded uncertainly, "So they tell me."

Suddenly Kelly felt very awkward in Voight's house having this conversation with the cop from Intelligence. He went back to the living room to see if Casey was in any condition to get out of there. He knelt down by the couch and shook his best friend again. "Casey...Casey."

Matt's eyes opened, this time almost all the way, and he slowly looked around, not moving his head, only his eyes, and he looked at the man hovering over him and tiredly asked, "Kelly?"

"Yeah, it's me."

Casey looked at him for a few seconds, his eyes alert but distant, almost blank. Then in one sudden movement without a single word or sound, he shot up on the couch and wrapped his arms around Kelly and rested his head on Kelly's shoulder.

Severide was stunned at first but quickly recovered, and in return, locked his arms around Casey. He had no idea what to make of this, if Casey would've said anything or made any kind of sound that Kelly could get a read on what was going on with him, but there was nothing, no heavy or shallow or shaky breathing as typically followed him waking up screaming from a nightmare, no screams, no cries, there was no rapid heartbeat pounding against his own chest, there were no sobs trying to wrack their way up through his body, there was nothing, only Casey clinging to him like a drowning man clinging to a lifesaver.

Kelly could feel another presence in the room, he knew Voight was there watching them, and while he would've liked nothing more than to tell the Intelligence sergeant to give them some privacy, he knew that there'd be no such luck if he broached the subject. Hell, he could just picture the cop pulling up a chair for a closer view just to be a smartass about it. Instead he turned his head and said quietly enough so only Casey could hear him, "It's okay. Come on, I'll take you home."

With some obvious reluctance, Casey let go of Severide and pulled away from him. Severide moved so Casey could get off the couch, Matt stood up and rubbed his eyes, Kelly turned and saw Voight standing in the doorway.

"Thanks for keeping an eye on him for me," Kelly told him as he headed to the dining room.

"Don't mention it."

"Hank," Casey said uncertainly as he put on his jacket, not sure what _to_ say.

Voight closed the distance between them and told the lieutenant, "Matt...you ever need to talk to someone about what happened, or _not_ , you always know where you can find me."

Casey looked at him and nodded slowly, "Thanks, Hank, I appreciate it."

* * *

Once Casey got in the passenger side of Severide's car, whatever energy he had quickly left him and he was more asleep than awake by the time they finally got back home. Severide had to more or less walk his friend from the car up the sidewalk, up the stairs, and in the front door.

"You wanna just crash on the couch?" Kelly asked as they walked in.

Casey muttered something that sounded like a definite no.

"Okay then," Kelly said as he slung Casey's arm over his shoulder, "brace yourself, buddy, we got some stairs to climb."

Casey yawned and rested his head against Severide's shoulder as they made their way up to the second floor. Severide turned on the light in Casey's room, saw the bed still in a state of disarray, at least it'd save him the trouble of pulling down the covers before easing Casey on it. He got Casey over to the bed and let him fall back on the middle of the mattress while Kelly grabbed his boots one by one and got them off. Casey weakly brought his hands up to his face and made a bunch of small groaning sounds that if Kelly had to guess, actually suggested just being awake was causing him some kind of physical pain.

"You want me to stay with you, Casey?" he asked.

Casey grunted something that sounded like another 'no'.

"You sure about that?" Kelly asked.

Casey let out another incoherent sound but Severide interpreted it as a 'no' as well.

"If you say so," Kelly dropped Casey's boots on the floor, then grabbed Matt under the armpits and laid him out length-wise on the bed and drew the covers up over him. He patted Casey's shoulders through the blanket and told him, "Goodnight, buddy."

* * *

Matt woke up and saw the sun light just starting to shine in through the window. He didn't know what time it was, he didn't remember anything that had happened last night, it was like he'd woken up from a total fog. He was laying on his stomach and had the side of his head buried in the pillow as he slowly looked around the room with one eye. Then, a series of icy chills ran down his spine. He couldn't explain it, but he _knew_ there was someone in the room with him, he could feel the presence of another person. He looked around without turning his head and saw nothing was out of place, leaving only one possible explanation, whoever it was, was right behind him.

Then suddenly the memories of last night came flooding back, waking up and feeling Cardoza on top of him, even though he knew it was impossible. In the cold light of day he knew it was even more impossible, but he could still feel pins and needles coursing down his back in anxiety as he contemplated who was there. Finally in one quick movement, he turned over to see who it was, and he stopped, and lay there with a dumbstruck look on his face. It was Severide. He was laying flat on his back and had the covers pulled up to his chest, and was dead to the world.

This wasn't the first time he'd waken up in the same bed as the Squad lieutenant, by this time it wasn't even the second or third time. The first time, Casey had been so shocked that he was literally frozen for several seconds unable to move or speak. While this still caught him off guard, he recovered quicker this time and exclaimed, "Kelly!"

Severide's eyes popped open at the sound of his name and he blinked a few times to get his bearings, and when he realized where he was and who'd called him, he looked at Casey, and his expression quickly changed from confusion to a mischievous cheeky grin, like he got caught doing something he _knew_ he'd get caught at.

"Morning, Casey. You feeling better?"

"What're you doing here?" Matt asked.

"Well, I thought you might need some company," Kelly answered as he sat up. "Look, Casey, I'm sorry I wasn't here last night."

"Don't," Casey cut him off. He sat up, "I _don't_ need a babysitter, Severide."

The expression in Severide's eyes changed and became more somber. "I know, but I thought you could use a friend."

Casey shook his head with a confused expression on his face like he was still trying to put the pieces of last night together.

"Matt, I just have one question," Severide said, " _What_ ever possessed you to go to Voight's last night?"

Casey looked at him like he had no recollection of that. Then it started to come to him. He looked down and shook his head, "I don't know...I hardly even remember going there...I just knew I couldn't stay here."

"Why didn't you call me last night?" Kelly asked. "You know I would've come home."

"Now you know why I _didn't_ ," Casey replied. He rubbed his eyes and sighed. "Look, I appreciate everything you did for me at the time, but I _don't_ want to go back to that, I can't ha-I _won't_ have you running back here every time I have a rough night."

"I'd rather do that than come home and find you gone again wondering if something happened," Kelly told him. "Casey I was scared to _death_ last night, you take off, your truck's here, your phone's here, the door's open, do you realize how panicked I was to actually call Voight for help?"

Casey just looked at him. He said nothing, but he didn't need to, his eyes told Kelly everything he needed to know, if _Kelly_ was that worried, just imagine how terrified Casey must've been to actually go to Voight last night. Kelly couldn't find any words for a response that would do any justice. He reached over and grabbed Casey and pulled him against him and told him, "I'm sorry, man, I should've been here."

Casey sighed and responded, "It's not your fault."

Severide pressed a hand to the back of Casey's neck and told him, "It's not yours either." Even though he knew that Casey inherently _knew_ that fact, he didn't figure it hurt to have someone else confirm it.

Casey simultaneously welcomed and resented this. He hated that this long after the fact he was still haunted by the memories of what happened, and he knew Voight was right, he knew that it wasn't so different from any other traumas he experienced on the job or in his own life, none of them had ever left him. He resented that too, he resented Voight being right, as messed up as his life had been by what his mom did to his dad so many years ago, he'd been able to come to terms with it, he knew _why_ it had happened. He'd _tried_ to come to terms with this too, but he couldn't, to this day he still had no idea _why_ it had happened, he just hated that it did. He hated that he couldn't move on, he tried, but every so often, something reminded him of the attack.

He felt Severide pull back from him and he heard Kelly say to him, "Promise me you'll call next time."

Casey nodded. "I will."


	2. Chapter 2

Casey didn't keep his promise. The first night after the next shift, Kelly had gone out again that night, Casey had opted to stay home. Around midnight he found himself looking at his phone, looking at Severide's number, just about to call him, just about to keep his promise. But in the end, he didn't, instead he dug up another number and dialed it instead.

Voight's gruff voice answered with a slightly hesitant, "Matt?"

"Can you talk?" Casey asked. He already wished he hadn't called, but he knew he owed the cop some explanation now that he had.

"Sure," Hank replied, "What's going on?"

Casey wasn't sure he could tell Voight anymore than he could've told Severide, but he decided there was no going back.

"Tell me again I'm not going crazy."

There was a small pause on the other end before Hank asked, "What's going on, Matt?"

"I've spent the last half hour going through this whole house making sure nobody's in it," Casey said tiredly as he rubbed his eyes with his free hand. "I _know_ nobody was but...I couldn't accept it, if that makes sense."

"Kelly's gone again?" Voight sounded surprised.

"I don't want him to know," Casey said. "Every time something happens, he thinks he needs to blow everything off and babysit me."

"Matt," Voight said in a knowing father's tone that hinted at a lecture.

"He's got his own stuff going on without this adding to it," Casey said.

Voight responded, "He has his own _guilt_ over what happened Casey, that he wasn't able to stop you from being attacked, only after the fact. He's got his own demons he's been fighting since that night, and that's not going away anytime soon either, don't shut him out."

"Hank."

" _Matt_ ," the voice on the other end warned him this was not up for discussion, "You know whether you want to admit it or not you two are a _lot_ alike."

Casey knew there wasn't any point trying to lie to a cop, "So?"

" _So_ ," Hank replied in a mocking tone, "did it ever occur to you that he needs to be there with you just as much as you need him there, to _know_ it's over? Look, you're the victim in this so nobody can tell you how to act, but don't think Severide wasn't also traumatized by what happened that night, _or_ the weeks that followed."

Casey sat down on the stairs in the front hall, sighed and absently rubbed his face. "I..."

"Never thought about that," Voight finished for him, "I know, most people don't, and he sure as hell wouldn't admit it, because in his mind that would be taking something away from you, and we both know he wouldn't do that."

It didn't occur to Casey to ask how Voight could get such a reading on Severide when the two had hardly any interaction over the past few years, all that did dawn on him was that Voight was right. Severide was a stubborn, bullheaded...he sighed as he realized there was no way to finish that sentence without admitting that Voight was right and the very same thing applied to him as well. He remembered his own words to Severide not too long after his attack.

 _"If it had been you..." he shook his head, "You wouldn't tell them. You wouldn't tell anyone."_

Neither would've Matt if he'd been given that choice. But he didn't have that option, Severide walked in during the middle of his attack, simultaneously the best and worst thing that could've possibly happened to him, it was the only thing that had stopped the rape, but it also forced Casey to admit to another person that it had actually happened, and while there was _no_ doubt how real it was in the actual moment, actually having to admit what happened just made it all the more real and that much more a nightmare for him. Looking back he knew sooner or later it would've come out anyway simply because he hadn't been able to keep his emotions in check, sooner or later somebody would've put the pieces together, something Casey didn't want to admit even to himself, none of these facts made the truth any easier to face.

He'd never actually _thought_ about if it had been Severide in his position, but he still stood by his original statement, that if it _had_ , he never would've told anyone what happened. With a sigh he realized it was the same thing happening now, Severide would never admit to anything that had happened since that night, even when he tried keeping everything together for Casey's sake when it was just the two of them and even that failed miserably, he still refused to admit that he had been affected by what happened save for the times Kelly apologized to him for not killing Cardoza when he had the chance and sparing him all the trouble of the ensuing police investigation. Even then though, he wouldn't admit it for himself, but in those instances he didn't have to, Casey could see it in his eyes, he could hear it in his voice.

"So what do I do?" Casey asked the Intelligence sergeant.

"Talk to him," Hank answered simply.

"I can't."

"I doubt there's much uncharted territory between you two on this," Hank responded.

"I just want to put this behind me and move on with my life."

"I know," Voight said in a more somber tone, "we all do, Matt. Look, there isn't anyone alive who knows you who doesn't want the same thing for you, and they're _all_ willing to help you if you need it. The hardest part for you is to admit you _need_ it."

Casey shook his head. "You don't get it."

"Oh believe me, I do. You don't want to talk about what happened, to _anyone_ , I get it, I can understand it, but I also know it doesn't work."

"We've already gone through all this, what's left to talk about?" Casey asked.

"Why don't you ask Kelly?" Voight replied.

Casey sighed, "I'm grateful for everything Severide's done for me, but I don't want to keep bringing this up with him, I don't want him to think..."

" _What_?" Voight asked, as if he already knew the answer and was trying to draw it out of him. "Casey, he already saw you at your worst, and he put up with a _lot_ from you, and I get it, you needed someone to lash out at, it's human nature, so what is it you don't want him to think?" There was a pause. Voight tried again, a slightly softer tone now. "Matt, you don't really think Severide's going to think any less of you because of this, do you?"

Finally there was a sigh from the other end. "Not less maybe, but definitely differently."

"Meaning?" Voight asked.

Casey couldn't explain it, he refused to discuss it with Hank.

Apparently he didn't need to, somehow Voight seemed to pick up on what was not being said.

"Casey, Severide isn't sticking close to home because he thinks you're going crazy or that you can't take care of yourself. He just wants to make sure you're alright."

"He shouldn't have to check on me all the time."

"Matt, he's scared, and he blames himself because he knows if he'd stayed home that night, Cardoza wouldn't have gotten to you, he _thinks_ anyway. Since we were never able to find any other victims, we don't know how this guy operated. It's very possible he could've gotten the drop on both of you, it happens, unfortunately more than you think, sometimes even two on one still aren't good enough odds. The right attacker can subdue one victim, and use the threat of death to that one to coerce a second victim into complying, sometimes even assisting. Then Kelly would've blamed himself for _being_ there and still not being able to stop it...and if he had been there, and Cardoza had gotten him instead...or suppose that Severide had been the first one home that night, and Cardoza was there waiting. Maybe his intended target wasn't you at all, maybe it was whoever walked through that door first that night since he knew you both came home at different times. Or what if he had specifically targeted Severide? If he came home first that night and it was just him and Cardoza until _you_ came through the door..."

"Hank, _don't_ ," Casey closed his eyes and pressed his free hand to his face, "don't go there."

"Would you have thought any less of him?" Voight asked point blank.

"Why are you doing this to me?" Casey asked.

"Would you?" he persisted.

Casey shook his head, and even though Voight couldn't see it, he must've somehow been able to sense it.

"So you see, you two really aren't that different, which is probably why you don't get along too often."

That drew a small laugh out of the lieutenant.

"Hank."

"Yeah?"

"I hate you."

Now it was the harsh raspy voice on the other end laughing, and that made Casey smile slightly as he added, "But I'm glad I can talk to you."

"Anytime, Matt. You feeling better?"

"A little."

" _Don't_ shut Kelly out on this," Voight told him.

"I won't," Casey sighed reluctantly, "I just wish I didn't have to do this."

"You'll be fine."

Those three simple words overwhelmed Casey, it wasn't so much what Voight said, it was his tone when he said them, a typical father's 'you got this' tone. Granted he never heard much of one himself growing up, still he'd been around enough other people over the years that he knew one when he heard it.

"Oh, one more thing," Voight said.

"What's that?" Casey asked.

"You're not crazy for checking the house for intruders, this _is_ Chicago," Voight pointed out.

* * *

Severide finally came home around 1:30 in the morning, he took notice of Casey's pickup parked out front, the upstairs lights were out, the _downstairs_ lights were on though. Curious, he moved up the sidewalk, found the door unlocked, stepped in, and was immediately met with the sight of Matt sitting at the bottom of the staircase right by the door.

"You didn't call," Kelly told him. Intentionally or not, his tone let the Truck lieutenant know he'd been actively checking all night.

"I know," Casey said tiredly. "I just thought I'd wait up...you got a minute?"

Whatever else Kelly was about to say just flew out of his head, he felt like he'd just dropped a stack of bricks off his shoulders. Suddenly he couldn't be mad at Casey if he tried.

"Yeah, sure," he said, not sure what was about to happen, hoping it wasn't anything horrible. Casey didn't move to get up, so Severide moved to sit beside him on the steps, Casey scooted over and pressed his knees together to make room, it was still a tight fit.

"I'm sorry about the other night, I didn't mean to worry you," Casey started. He wouldn't actually look at Severide, he just stared at the wall ahead as he spoke.

"I just wanted to make sure you were alright," Kelly replied.

Casey drew his eyes up and looked toward the ceiling on the second floor. "I hate that we still have to talk about this all this time later. I really thought that..."

"I know," Kelly said, shifting his own gaze to the floor.

"I guess I owe you an apology," Casey said.

"For what?" Kelly turned to him.

Casey looked down towards his feet and answered, "I was so worried what people would think of me, how they'd act towards me, I never thought about what it must've been like for you that night."

He finally turned to look at Kelly, who was taken aback by his comment, and shook his head, "It doesn't matter, Casey."

"Yes it does. In hindsight, I could tell it was hell for you, but..." he shook his head, "I was...too..." he couldn't find the right word, "self absorbed."

"Casey," Kelly almost laughed, "that's your right."

"No, no, _no_ ," Casey shook his head and groaned, "I had no right to snap at you all the time when you were just trying to help, you stayed up all night watching me, you hardly let me out of your sight, and I had no problem with letting you go through all that, I didn't stop to think how hard it had to have been on you."

"You know I'd do it again," Kelly told him.

"I know, and I appreciate it, but I also hate it," Casey said, "I hate that you had to do it at all, even though I know..."

Severide's words came back to him, the morning after he'd smashed his mirror to pieces.

 _"I like to think if it was me, you'd do the same."_

And he would. And he _knew_ he would.

"I hate what you had to go through," Kelly told him, bringing him out of his thoughts, "but I don't have any regrets about what I did." He inched a little closer to make sure he had Matt's attention and added, "Casey, I would love to be able to say 'we don't ever have to talk about this again', but I know that's not the case."

"That's what scares me," Casey looked at him, "That I _know_ it's not going to get any better. Is the rest of my life _really_ going to be like this?"

"You know I can't answer that," Kelly said, "but what I do know is I thought the same thing when Andy died, when Shay died, and I _know_ you thought the same thing when Hallie died."

"It's not the same."

"No, but the thought process is, that it's never going to get any better, and yeah, there are plenty of times we wake up and think it was just a dream, that they're still here, then reality hits us again...but I know we're better off now than we were at the time. Same thing, Casey, it just takes time."

"It's been months already," Casey sighed.

"I know," Kelly said, "but you remember when I was looking at a _year_ recovery time from the surgery to fix my neck?"

"But you wouldn't accept it," Casey said.

"What if I didn't have a choice?" Kelly asked. "What if there had been no experimental surgery with only a few weeks' recovery? Yeah, I would've hated it with every inch of my existence, and there would've been plenty of days I wished I was dead, but if it was the only option, I would've done it." He looked at Casey through the corner of his eye and added, "And you know damn well that when I was finally cleared to come back to work, you'd be right there waiting for me."

Casey snorted, "Waiting my ass, you know I'd be there every night off shift when you were sitting around the house feeling sorry for yourself."

Casey didn't know why, but what he'd just said made him laugh, and then he couldn't stop laughing, and finally it spread to Kelly and he busted out laughing too. The two of them sat on the third step laughing until they couldn't even make any noise anymore, Casey laughed until he couldn't breathe and fell against Severide.

Kelly finally stopped laughing and he reached over and put an arm around Casey and pulled him towards him, and leaned over and kissed him on the top of the head, just as he used to do with Shay several years ago. "I love you, buddy."

"Yeah well I guess I must love you too," Casey grunted as he slapped a hand against Severide's ribs and pushed back from him.

"Look, Casey, I know this is hard to talk about...I know we'd both rather get drug out in the street and shot than actually talk about it...and I know it's an age old custom that _nobody_ talks about this, that _we_ ," he gestured to the both of them, and Casey knew he was referring to the entire male species in general, " _especially_ don't talk about this, and I know the fire department's not so ancient history of looking down on any firefighters who got professional help for any trauma..." he looked Casey in the eyes and added, "but I also saw you 'not talking about it' for two weeks and I saw how well it _didn't_ work. I _also_ remember you tracking me down and lecturing me about not dealing with Shay's death and cutting myself off from everyone else."

Casey looked down at the floor again and murmured, "So this should just be more of the same."

"It's more complicated, but yeah, pretty much," Kelly said. "Casey...I _am_ a part of it, I _was_ there...you don't have to hide anything from me."

Casey slowly nodded, but it wasn't in agreement , "There are things that I couldn't tell you...no matter what...I'm sorry, that's just the way it is."

Kelly somberly nodded, "I get it...I understand, there are things from that time that I can't tell you either, Casey, no matter how much I want to, I just can't."

Though Kelly had a pretty good idea what the difference was in their secrets. Casey's were more based in what he was actually experiencing during his attack, the deepest, darkest secrets from that time he would rather die than have anyone find out, even his best friend; Kelly's on the other hand, most importantly, what actually happened to Cardoza, he _wanted_ to tell Casey, so many times he'd been tempted to tell him, thinking maybe it would give his friend some peace of mind, but in the end he decided against it because he knew he just _couldn't_ tell Casey. He would take it to his grave, rather than admit it and see the betrayal he knew would be on Matt's face when he realized what Severide had done and that he'd kept him in the dark about it.

"So now what?" Casey asked.

"Casey, nobody can tell you how to act after what happened, not even you can," Kelly told him. "I just hope when you _do_ decide to talk about it, that you'll tell me."

Casey still looked at the floor. "You're the only one I can."

"That's not true and you know it."

"Not far off...I really _can't_ talk about this with any of the others from 51, they're happy to know as little about what happened as possible...I know, Boden gave me the 'if you need anything' speech, but I _can't_ tell them about what happened."

"You seem to forget we share a mutual therapist," Kelly said.

"At least Rhonda can keep her mouth shut," Casey responded, "what I've told her would already line the walls in her whole house if she actually kept records."

"What's she say?"

"Oh the usual, 'no typical reaction', 'no typical recovery', 'it takes time', 'stop treating Severide like an idiot'."

Kelly busted out laughing again. "She told you that? She's always telling me to quit _being_ an idiot."

Casey brought his hands up to his face, but the corners of his mouth turning up in a small smile were still visible, as was the sudden jerking movement in his upper body as a couple small laughs worked their way loose.

"You want to go to bed?" Severide asked.

Casey lowered his hands and answered quietly, "Yeah."

Kelly looked over at him and asked, "You want me to stay with you tonight?"

Casey looked back down and after a few seconds slowly nodded.

Kelly clapped a hand on Casey's back, reached up with his other hand to grab the railing to pull himself up, and said, "Let's go."


	3. Chapter 3

Casey woke up screaming and just about fell clear out of the bed. He wrestled with the covers to get loose, saw the red digits on the clock reading 2:45, and was also aware that Severide hadn't woken up despite the noise. He looked over and with the little light put out from the clock, saw Kelly's back to him, and heard the steady breathing of the other man. Grateful that he didn't wake his friend up anyway, Casey flung the covers back and got to his feet, and as quickly and quietly as he could, left the room and rushed down the stairs. Right now he needed to put some distance between himself and Severide, and figure out what was going on.

He went into the kitchen but didn't turn on the lights. Working by the light from the digital clocks on the stove and the microwave, Matt fumbled around in the dark and put on a pot of coffee. While it was cooking, he finally calmed down and thought back to the dream that had woken him up in sheer terror.

He wanted to kill Voight. He told the sergeant not to go there, but he did, and he'd put the image in Casey's head, something he'd never thought of before, and wished he could forget now.

There had been a few times over the months that he dreamt about his attack, usually it was a verbatim recap of what had happened that night, some times there were small variations. This dream had started off the same way, only Casey quickly realized something was amiss. He had come home late at night, he'd gone up to the door, found it open, gone in, moved from room to room checking for an intruder, then he'd heard something coming from the kitchen.

Upon entering, he hit the light switch and to his horror, he saw Severide on the floor on his side, one cheek pressed hard into the linoleum, his wrists bound together with duct tape, another strip of it clamped over his mouth, part of it was bloody from a cut over his eye that ran down his face. His short hair was dripping wet with perspiration, his face was flushed, his eyes half squeezed shut, the skin around them streaked with tears that had dried and then new ones that trailed over them. The muffled grunts and sobs and moans making their way around the gag haunted Casey and sent chills clear down his spine. Though Kelly's wrists were bound together, his hands were outreached towards Matt, as if begging for help. It was almost an afterthought that he also noticed Severide's shirt hiked up to his stomach and his jeans and underwear were bunched up halfway down his thighs.

And then almost as an entirely different part of the dream, was the man on top of Severide. Casey couldn't get a clear look at the man, he didn't know if it was supposed to be Cardoza or not. He stopped, and stood up, and looked at Casey.

Then he was gone. Just vanished into thin air. Severide was moaning louder through the tape and trying to push himself up on his knees. Casey ran over to him and cut his wrists loose.

"Kelly, oh my God, what happened?" he asked as he cut clear through the tape and peeled it off his friend's wrists. Then he grabbed the strip on Severide's mouth and pulled it off.

Casey didn't see the blow coming, but Severide knocked him flat on his back and was screaming bloody murder at him, the only part Casey could coherently make out, "Don't touch me! Get away from me!"

Casey slowly sat up. By now Severide had pulled his jeans up and gotten them fastened and was struggling to get his belt on right but his hands were shaking too much to get it buckled.

"Kelly, we need to get you to the hospital," Casey said as he got up.

"I'm _not_ going to the hospital!" Kelly glared at him, "I'm not having anyone know about this!"

"Kelly, they _have_ to do a rape kit, what if this guy has a disease?"

"I don't care! I don't want anyone to know about it!"

"Kelly!"

" _Stay_ away from me!" Kelly hit him again and Casey reeled back and fell against the table.

But Casey wouldn't give up. He lunged at Severide and tackled him, the two of them fell to the floor with Severide trying to beat the hell out of him to get him away from him. Casey got the upper hand and put Severide in a headlock and pinned him to the floor and told him, "Kelly, I don't care if we _both_ need an ambulance after this, I'm taking you to the hospital."

Severide struggled against him, trying to throw him off, "I'm not going, _NOW GET OFF OF ME!_ "

"Kelly!" Casey pinned his weight against Severide to keep him down, "He's gone now, you need to get help!"

"No! I'm not going, I'm not having anybody know what happened!"

Casey could feel Severide gradually getting weaker under him, he wasn't struggling as much now. Then he felt something else, a series of spasms was wracking through Severide's chest and back and as such Casey felt them against his own body. He realized Kelly was breaking down crying, and now Casey felt like an idiot practically laying on top of him, he slowly climbed off Kelly's back and gave the Squad lieutenant some space as Severide drew his knees up and started to curl into a ball as he fell apart now that he knew he was out of any immediate danger.

Casey inched over and placed a cautious hand on Kelly's back, Severide groaned and pressed his body into an even tighter position.

"Kelly," Casey said quietly as he lay on the floor beside his best friend, "It's going to be okay, but I need you to trust me."

"Nobody can know, Casey," Severide said in a quiet, defeated tone.

Casey carefully reached over and slowly gathered Kelly in his arms and pulled him up onto his knees and hugged him.

"I can't promise that," Casey told him regretfully, "but I can promise you you're not going to go through this alone, I'm going to do everything I can to help you."

Severide pressed his face against Casey's shoulder and got out a few small sobs, and asked, almost resentfully, "Why did you have to come home? Why couldn't you have just stayed gone? Then _nobody_ would know."

Casey felt like he'd just been slapped. In the deep recesses of his mind he knew that Severide didn't really mean what he'd just said, but knowing that didn't make it hurt any less. Matt put his own feelings aside and assured Kelly, "It's going to be okay."

"No it's not," Severide shook his head as he pulled away, "If the others find out about this... _everything_ I've worked for since the academy will be _over_. I can't go back there."

"Kelly..."

"I can't, they're going to be looking at me and wondering how I could _let_ this happen...they'll think I did something to _deserve_ it."

"No they won't, Kelly, you know them better than that."

"If this gets out, I'll lose the respect of every single person at 51, my life will be over!" Kelly yelled at him. "If I don't have them...I don't have anything."

Casey pulled Severide against him again, and used all his strength to keep Severide from breaking loose and getting away, he forced the other man to look him in the eyes as he told him, "It's going to be alright, Kelly, I promise. I'm not going to let anything else happen to you."

Casey felt something wet on his hands, he pulled them back and saw they were covered in blood, and that's when he woke up screaming.

* * *

 _"Would you have thought any less of him?"_

That had been Voight's question earlier that night. Casey hadn't wanted to think about it, but he knew the answer. No. Severide was about as strong as they came, and if it could happen to him...and that was the first time Casey consciously admitted it _could_ happen to Severide, just as easily as it had happened to _him_.

It was true, he'd never given much thought to what it must've been like for Severide that night when he walked into the middle of it. Now he knew, he'd seen with his own eyes just how horrifying an experience it was. Seeing Kelly in his position, feeling just as helpless about stopping it, Casey realized it was just as terrifying from where Kelly stood that night, as it had been for him where he lay on the floor unable to move.

Then all the things he'd said and done shortly after the fact came back to him, some of it he'd remembered all this time, others he'd tried to block out, maybe even succeeded for a while. The first couple days after were the worst, no doubt about that. Severide was walking a fine line between trying to help Matt and trying to keep his distance. For the most part when Casey warned him 'don't touch me', Severide listened, a couple times he forgot, it wasn't his fault, it was his nature to physically reach out to people when they were hurting. The morning after the rape, he'd _felt_ Kelly about to touch him, and before he could, Casey turned around, screamed and slapped him. Kelly's eyes were wide open in shock, it didn't leave a handprint on his face, it was more noise than anything, but it had snapped him to attention. At the time Casey was so enraged by what happened, he didn't care, he wanted Severide to keep his distance, looking back, he'd never really apologized for it. And Severide had never brought it up, even that hadn't been enough to call him off.

Every time Casey turned around, Kelly was there, trying to help him in some way, even when he had no idea what to do, and Casey certainly couldn't clue him in because all he wanted was to be left alone, but Severide always provided his presence if nothing else, he almost _never_ let Casey out of his sight, the only time he could actually get away from Severide was in the bathroom, it was the only place in the whole house where Kelly wouldn't invade his privacy. He took a shower almost every night, after the first time it had nothing to do with some obsession to 'get clean' following his rape, half the time it was just to put some distance between he and Severide for a while, so he could finally be alone, the problem was that usually led to him thinking, which he tried to avoid at all costs. Kelly _tried_ to get him to talk about what happened, he pushed a little but mainly kept his distance, but he never gave up, every day even when he knew what he was walking into, he tried again, and again, and again.

 _"I know you don't want to hear this, but I think you need to tell the guys what's going on."_

 _"No!" Casey groaned. "I don't want anyone else to know, it's bad enough that you know."_

 _There was a pause between them before Severide asked, "What about the next part?"_

 _"What part?"_

 _"Your statement to the cops."_

 _Casey looked at him._

 _"I know, you don't want to," Kelly said._

And if Casey hadn't decided he would talk to them anyway, he knew that Severide would've stayed on his case about it, until he finally agreed to. He knew _why_ Severide wouldn't let it go, at the time he hated Kelly for it, but he knew if the roles were reversed, he would've done exactly the same, because that was the kind of friends they were. Severide could be a self righteous pain in the ass when he had a mind to be, but there hadn't been any of that the three weeks he let Casey bite his head off at every turn. Matt seriously had to wonder, had things gone differently, if the guys at 51 hadn't found out, if he hadn't talked to the cops, if Cardoza hadn't been arrested, _how_ long could the two of them possibly have gone on like they did? The three weeks it _did_ take was already enough to nearly drive them both crazy, but still he knew Severide wouldn't have given up, he was too stubborn for that.

Standing alone in the kitchen with all this running through this head, Casey didn't know if he felt like crying or throwing up.

* * *

Severide had been in a dead sleep, unaware of anything going on around him, then suddenly he felt a pair of hands on his neck and he awoke with a startled gasp. Just as he grabbed the hands around his neck, he realized the man hovering over him was Matt, and he started to calm down.

"Casey, what is it? What's the matter?" he tiredly asked as he tried to fully wake up.

The only thing Casey said to the Squad lieutenant was a hushed, "Thank you," as he sank down and wrapped his arms around Kelly's neck in a hug.

"For what?" Kelly asked as he tried to put some distance between Casey and his windpipe.

Even though it was dark, he could see Casey staring him in the eyes as he answered, "For being more stubborn than I was."

Kelly rolled his eyes to one side as if he was trying to pick up on clue, then he looked back at Matt and asked helplessly, "...Huh?"

"After my attack," Casey told him, "you know I was content to bury the whole thing and not let anybody find out about it, no doctors, no cops, _nobody_ at 51...but you didn't give me a choice, you _forced_ me to get help, you forced me to talk about it, and I hated you for it so much at the time...and I know I was horrible to you about it, and I feel _awful_ about it...thank you for not giving up on me."

"Casey, what's going on?" Kelly felt totally lost.

Casey stood up straight and a shiver ran through his body as he told him, "I just had a _horrible_ nightmare."

"What was it?"

There was a pause, and a hesitant, "Do you _really_ want me to tell you?"

Severide nodded, then realized their positions, he slid over to Casey's side of the bed and pulled the covers back for him, "Yeah, sit down, what happened?"

Casey slid in beside him on the bed, and with much difficulty, he told Kelly about the dream he'd had, there were a lot of pauses where Casey wasn't sure he could continue, but he did, and after a while he'd told Severide the whole story.

"For the first time tonight I got a really good idea what you were going through that night, and it was just as terrifying where you stood as where I was...and I'm sorry for the way I treated you afterwards."

"Casey, you don't have to keep apologizing about that, I told you, it's not your fault."

"Then whose is it? The things I said, and did...I know you can't forget them."

"Well I didn't say they were forgotten," Kelly pointed out, "but we move on...it's all we can do."

"But I haven't, I can't." Casey groaned and rubbed his eyes.

"Casey, I know you don't want to keep going over this, but if you have to, that's all there is to it. If we have to go over this a hundred times, we will...hey," he reached over to get Matt to look at him, "I've been seeing Rhonda for over 3 years, and we're _still_ talking about stuff from our first sessions, and you know she doesn't forget anything so you _know_ it's not for the benefit of refreshing her memory."

Casey glumly nodded.

"It's going to get better, Casey, I promise. It's just going to take time."

Matt looked at him, then leaned over and hugged him tight. Kelly reciprocated and squeezed Casey's back until it about popped.

"Hey, look at me," Kelly told him. "I'm always here for you, you know that."

Casey nodded, right now words were beyond him.

Kelly kept one arm pinned against Casey's back and loosened the other to rub his back comfortingly, "It's going to be alright, Casey."

* * *

"I hear you've been having a few rough nights," Rhonda Lind said the next day when Casey went to see her.

Casey sat on the couch in her living room and stared at the blonde woman sitting across from him in a straight backed chair, a woman who bore so close of a resemblance to Leslie Shay it was like she'd come back from the dead, something he _still_ hadn't gotten used to.

"Severide told you," he said accusingly.

"I have my sources," she responded, not hinting either way. "You want to talk about it?"

"Would it matter if I said no?" he asked.

"You came here for a reason," she said.

"Be real with me, am I _ever_ going to stop waking up in the night screaming?" Casey asked.

"You know I can't answer that, Matt...I _can_ tell you that healing, and moving forward, is a lot easier when you're willing to open up about what happened _and_ you have a great support system in your life," Rhonda said.

"And the two have to interconnect, right?" Casey asked cynically.

"You mean actually _talking_ to the people in your life? Yeah."

"Easier said than done."

"Most things are," she replied, "especially anything important."

Casey grunted dismissively and looked to the side.

"Kelly's been doing a usual bang-up job of prodding, right?" Rhonda asked.

"He tries."

"Is he getting anywhere?"

"Not much," Casey answered.

"Anyone else?"

Casey closed his eyes and choked on a small unamused laugh. "Sergeant Voight from the 21st District."

Rhonda blinked. "The same man that tried to kill you."

"I know, I know, the irony never stops," Casey said.

"You want to talk about _that_?" she asked.

"Not really."

There was a small pause, then she asked, "Did it help?"

Casey hesitated, then said, "Well, it's a different perspective with him."

"Did you two have any contact during your case?" Rhonda asked.

"Only the morning after Cardoza was killed," Casey said, "he stopped by to check our alibis for the night before, that was it."

"But you talked to him about this?"

"I know, it doesn't make any sense to me either," Casey told her.

"Would you talk to him again about it?"

Casey sucked in a breath and answered, "I'm not sure."

She looked at him, "Would you rather talk to him than Kelly?"

Casey shifted his gaze away from her and didn't answer.

"Matt?"

"It's just so weird bringing more people into this, everybody knows _part_ of the story, nobody, except maybe Severide, knows the full details, or as close as possible anyway."

"And how did you initially feel when Kelly was the only one that knew?"

"Like I wanted to die," Casey answered, "it was so humiliating."

"But _you'd_ done nothing wrong."

"Doesn't matter..." Casey shook his head, "it was the worst night of my life."

"And you thought it would be easier or somehow better if nobody else knew."

"That's right."

"And when has that _ever_ been a good way to deal with something?" Rhonda asked.

Casey folded his arms against his chest and seemed to draw into himself, detach from the conversation.

"That's how you deal with a lot of things?"

"I try."

"When Andy died?"

Casey grunted under his breath.

"Kelly blamed you, and you being lieutenant, wouldn't burden your own men with what was going through your mind at that time."

"Now you're getting the picture."

"And when your mom killed your dad?"

Casey sighed. "I said everything I had to say at her trial."

"15 years, that's a long time to not talk to anyone about what happened," Rhonda pointed out.

Casey shifted his eyes to look at something over in the corner of the room.

"What about when you're on a call, and there's a victim you can't save? How many have there been since you became a firefighter?"

"Too many."

"Ever talk about any of them?"

Casey shook his head, "Not if I can help it."

"And when you don't have a choice?"

"I don't want to talk about that," Casey said.

"Then you don't have to. What _do_ you want to talk about?"

"I don't know," Casey looked down to the floor.

"How exactly _did_ you come to be on good terms with Sergeant Voight?" Rhonda inquired.

Casey laughed humorlessly. "I don't know...I guess I didn't have a choice. Hallie was murdered, and he was the one who tracked down her killer."

"And you had to work with him for that to happen."

"Yep."

"What was that like?"

"You don't want to know," Casey shook his head.

"And after that?"

Casey sighed, "51 kept getting involved with the police, and it was always Intelligence we wound up working with, and of course, Voight's in charge so he has to be involved in everything."

"And how did that make you feel?"

"Why do you always ask that?" Casey asked.

"Well?" she raised one eyebrow questioningly.

"I didn't like it, _obviously_ ," Casey replied.

"And how would you describe your and Voight's relationship _now_?" Rhonda asked.

"We don't _have_ one," Casey answered firmly.

"Yet you walked clear over to his house the other night, why?" she asked.

"I...I don't know...it wasn't planned, I just wound up there."

"Matt, you don't need me to point out there are a million places in this city you could've 'wound up', why Voight's?"

"I don't know."

She leaned over and asked, "Possibly because you actually felt safe with him?"

He looked at her with a dumbstruck expression, then quickly recovered and told her, "That's not funny."

"Am I wrong?" she asked in a neutral tone. "Voight clearly doesn't see you as a threat anymore, so you have nothing to fear from him, do you?"

"I guess not."

"And Voight has quite a reputation in this city, he'd never let anything happen to one of his own if he could help it, would he?"

"I guess not," Casey repeated hesitantly.

"And if you actually _were_ in any physical danger and you went to Voight, he wouldn't possibly let anything happen to you either, would he?" Rhonda prodded.

What Casey wouldn't give at that moment to suddenly be anywhere else, crawl under a rock and hide somewhere. This was one of the most awkward conversations he'd ever had in his life.

"I suppose not," he finally admitted.

"And what do you think of him?"

"Do I really have to do this?" Casey asked.

Rhonda leaned back in her chair and responded, "We don't have to do anything, we can call this all off right now if you want."

It was tempting, _sorely_ tempting, but Casey decided against it. "No, I better get this settled so I don't have something else 'unresolved' to think about later. Am I ever going to forget everything this guy did to me? No..."

"But?" Rhonda asked.

Casey shook his head and sighed, "He didn't want to lose his son, over the years I've been able to come to terms with that, I can't forgive what he did...but..."

"But you moved on," Rhonda said.

He looked at her as if he was ashamed by this revelation. "Yeah," he answered in a small voice.

"That wasn't overnight either, Matt," she pointed out.

"I know."

"This won't be either, but you _will_ move on, just as long as you don't start bottling everything up and shutting people out again," she told him.

"I guess I can live with that, but which of them do I actually _have_ to talk to in order to do that?" Casey asked.

Rhonda sat back and laughed. "You're not going to get anywhere by clamming up on people, Matt. You don't _have_ to talk to anybody you don't want to, but you do need to analyze why you don't want to talk to them. Are you shutting them out because you really don't have anything to say about this, or because you're still afraid of how they might respond?"

"You love using that word, don't you?" Casey remarked.

"What word?" she smiled knowingly.

"Afraid, I've been paying attention, you use it frequently in our conversations."

"And you said you'd rather be trapped in a fire with no way out, facing certain death, than get up in court and tell everybody what happened to you, if that's not fear, what is it?" Rhonda asked.

Casey's only response was to close his eyes and try to tune her out, but no such luck.

"Matt."

"You panic, you die, that's what all firefighters are taught," he told her.

"Panicking in a 10 alarm fire is one thing, being afraid because you were attacked, and afraid of how the people around you will respond to it, are two completely different things, Matt," Rhonda said.

"I panicked, I stopped fighting because I didn't want to die," he confessed. "Then I wished I had."

"You didn't do anything to be ashamed of, Matt, you were the victim, nothing that happened to you was your fault."

"I know that...but I can't accept it, does that make sense?"

"Yes," she answered simply. "Matt, every rape victim, no matter _how_ they react to what was done to them, all live with that guilt, the shame, the questions, what if they did this, what if they did something different to fight back? That's just natural, it happens to everyone, even though we all know all the second guessing doesn't do any good, people are still going to do it until the end of time. We tell victims all the time, the _only_ thing they're supposed to do is survive, then they can learn to deal with what happened to them. You really believe Harris Cardoza would've killed you if you'd resisted?"

He looked at her with wide eyes just about to border on tears, and he answered quietly, "Yes."

"Then you did exactly what you had to do to stay alive, and that's all you could do," Rhonda told him. "Very few victims get a chance to fight back, least of all the way they build it up in their minds that they could've done, should've done, most are lucky if they can defend themselves at all."

"And let me guess," Casey dryly responded, "Damn few are 'lucky' enough to have a friend walk in during it and do it for them."

Rhonda looked at him like she knew something he wasn't saying, and asked, as usual, her tone giving nothing away to what she was thinking, "Do you resent Kelly for coming home that night?"

"I have...I know I shouldn't, I can't help it...I know, I know, if he hadn't, I probably would've died from the shock and the blood loss, I can't separate that from the rest of it, but it doesn't stop me from trying. I hated him for becoming a part of it, I hated him for seeing me like that, and I especially hated him for trying to help me. He just couldn't let me handle it my way, he was always on my case about everything, go to the hospital, get tested, go to the police, file a report."

"And why did he do that?" Rhonda asked, her neutral tone doing nothing about the fact that Casey _knew_ that she knew the answer.

"Because he's my best friend," Casey answered hesitantly, "because he's dumb enough to care, and because he's infuriating enough to try and help, even when he knows it pisses me off and I just want to forget about the whole thing."

"You remember what I told you during our previous sessions, Matt," Rhonda said.

"I know, I know," he grumbled, "Quit treating Severide like an idiot."

"Not that," she replied, "there's no such thing as a typical rape victim, and there's no such thing as a typical rape recovery, or even a typical timeline for that recovery. You are just going to have to be patient, with yourself, and with everyone around you."

"Including the idiot?" Casey asked cynically.

Rhonda smiled. "Especially the idiot."

Casey turned his head to the side and half suppressed a laugh. He folded his arms, draped one leg over the other and asked her, "How exactly do you keep patients coming back when you insult them?"

"You ever want to join Kelly for a group session, you'll find out," she answered.


	4. Chapter 4

A/N: Here we are at the last chapter. I realize it's twice as long as the previous chapters but there was just no place to cut it in half and make two more. Hope you all enjoy, thanks for reading and reviewing!

Hank Voight quietly made his way down the stairs to see who was knocking on his door in the middle of the night again, the shotgun at the ready once again. He pulled back the corner of the curtain on the door and looked out, and he unlocked the door and opened it up.

"It's okay, I'm sober this time," was the first thing Casey said to him.

Voight looked past Casey and saw his pickup parked at the curb. "Well that's good to know."

"Can I talk to you?" Casey asked.

"Sure, come on in," Voight held the door for him.

Casey felt like he was experiencing déjà vu as he walked from the hall, to the dining room, to the living room, and sat down on the couch, and he told Voight, "I'm sorry about the trouble I caused the other night."

Voight shrugged and shook his head, "Don't worry about it."

"I'm still not exactly sure why I came here," Casey confessed. "But thanks for not throwing me out."

"In the condition _you_ were in?" Voight asked.

Matt ignored that comment and told the sergeant, "I've tried _not_ dealing with this, I've tried _to_ deal with it, I've tried not talking, I've tried talking about it, and none of it seems to make any difference, no matter what I do, I'm right back where I started."

"Nobody said recovery was easy," Voight replied. "Look, Matt, I know I'm not the most likely person you'd normally come to about this, I can appreciate how hard this must be. I know things have been rocky between us from the start, that's on me, I should've handled the situation better than I did."

"Yeah well, I know it sounds crazy, but I think I understand why you did it," Casey replied.

"I don't think you do," Voight replied. "I'd already lost my wife to cancer, my son was all I had left, and I knew he had his problems, and I thought I could fix them, thought I could fix _him_ , thought if I kept trying, something would finally take, but nothing did. Cops' kids are the bottom of the food chain in prison, when I was locked up, I knew what to expect, attempts _were_ made on my life, but I could take care of myself, but Justin?" Voight shook his head, "it was a miracle he came out of it alive. That would _not_ have been the case the second time if I hadn't sent him off to the army instead. There are a lot of things that I regret, a bunch of them involving my son, but what I did to you, that's definitely up there. But I want you to know that it wasn't personal, Matt, not towards you anyway, I would've done the same thing to anybody who was threatening to put my son in prison. The only difference is anybody else would've given in long ago just to make it all stop."

"I know, and I _do_ get it, Voight, but that's the thing," Casey told him. "I know _why_ you did what you did, I can rationalize that, I know what your reasons were...but Cardoza...what he did to me...I didn't know him, I'd never seen him before, but that couldn't _possibly_ have just been random, could it? There had to be _some_ reason he targeted me."

Voight shook his head, "Don't go looking for a way to make sense of this, Casey, it won't do you any good, sometimes there just aren't any answers, and you won't gain anything by driving yourself nuts trying to find one."

"But there's got to be a reason why he came after me," Casey replied.

"It doesn't matter if there was or not, what happened to you wasn't because of anything you did, or anything you didn't do, there wasn't anything you could've done to change it, I'm sorry, but that's just the way it is," Voight told him.

Casey sat there in silence for a moment and just looked at the wall in front of him. Then he told Voight, "I've tried to remember the timeline of that night...I told everyone, it just seemed to go on _forever_ , but how long's forever?"

"Matt..."

"I got home that night around 8...you had the tape of Severide's 911 call from the hospital...what time did he make that call?"

"It won't do you any good to know it, Matt."

"Tell me."

Voight sighed, and answered, "I went to the call center at 10 o' clock, the call came in a few minutes later."

"Two hours," Casey said, and closed his eyes as if trying to vanquish the memory, "he raped me for two hours..." he opened his eyes again, "After the first time...I must've blacked out...because it just seemed that the second time, Severide came in, but I knew some time had passed, I just didn't know how much. I've heard...about men who use crystal meth to...have sex for hours on end without needing to rest...so..."

Voight reached over and put a hand on Casey's shoulder as the younger man visibly struggled to continue with his current train of thought.

"So it's possible he was high on meth when he attacked me...but everything seemed planned...organized...could he have done that if he was strung out?"

"You're looking for more answers that won't help you," Voight told him. "Casey, I'm sorry for what happened to you, I'm sorry for what you had to go through, but torturing yourself isn't going to help. If you want to move on from this, you can't keep doing that."

Casey looked at Voight and said, "I never told Severide what time I got home, he has no idea how long..."

"Whether you tell him this or not is your business, but it's not going to change what he thinks of you either way," Hank pointed out.

Casey leaned back against the couch and groaned, "It would if it'd gone to trial, the defense asking me why in two hours I didn't do anything to fight back."

"You were tied up, you couldn't."

"Yeah, that'd _really_ matter to them," Casey snorted.

"What might have happened at trial doesn't matter because Cardoza is dead, you never have to worry about that," Voight told him.

Casey closed his eyes and asked him, "If it had gone to trial, what do you think would've happened?"

Voight waited until Casey opened his eyes and looked straight at him and said, "I won't lie, but I don't think you want to know what I think either."

"Hank, please, I need to get _some_ answers on this."

Voight nodded, and told him, "The defense would have in its favor that his client had no noted history of sexual assault, no known prior victims, and that you bailed on the rape kit, there were no photos of your injuries, and the only witness is your best friend who would say anything to help you. What _you'd_ have in your favor is you're a respected member of the community, a lot of people know you, you have no history of false reports, no criminal history, and, ridiculous as it sounds, society still holds bias for people they find physically attractive."

"Hank."

Voight raised a hand, "You can laugh, nobody wants to admit our society is that petty, but it's true, and a choice between you and some slob who reeks of cheap cigarettes, it's a no brainer who'd get that vote, no matter how his lawyer might've dressed him up, some things can't be hidden behind a clean suit."

"But you don't actually think the jury would believe me," Casey said.

"They might, especially if any of them had ever been raped, or knew somebody who was," Hank replied.

Casey slowly nodded, looking like he had a migraine, and he responded, "Thanks for being honest with me."

"Believe me, I wish I had something better than that," Voight told him.

Casey bent his head to look down at the floor, and pinched the skin between the bridge of his nose and his eyes with his thumb, index and middle fingers and sighed.

Voight heard the small sound that escaped from Casey's throat, it was quiet enough even he didn't seem to be aware of it, then another one came out, then another, and another, and then Casey's chest started heaving in time with the sounds.

Voight reached over and grabbed Casey and semi-forcefully took the younger man in his arms, Matt struggled, but not much. Hank lightly pushed Casey's head to rest in the crook between his neck and his shoulder.

"It's alright, it's alright," he said assuredly to the young man sobbing in his arms. He was well familiar with this kind of outburst, the breakdown of somebody who was just so damn tired and who'd lost the strength to keep fighting, and tired of even trying.

Voight patted Casey's back soothingly and told him, "You're okay, and you're going to get better, because I know you're strong enough to do it."

Casey finally found the strength to raise his arms, and loosely wrapped them around Voight and clung to him as he tiredly cried himself into complete exhaustion. After a while he calmed down and got quiet.

Voight was well aware how delicate and awkward their current position was, especially if anybody would walk in at that moment. He took advantage of it just being the two of them and asked Casey, "Do you want to stay here tonight, or do you want me to call Severide and have him come get you? Because you're in no condition to drive right now."

Casey just sighed, but wouldn't answer, then Voight realized it was because Casey had actually fallen asleep in his arms. Delicate and awkward _indeed_.

"Well I guess that answers my question," Hank said.

Voight moved slowly and laid Casey back against the cushions, stood up, and laid him out flat on the couch. A couple minutes later, Casey sighed in his sleep and turned over onto his stomach, one arm dangling over the side of the couch. Voight leaned down and looked at the lieutenant and saw he really was in a dead sleep, he stood back up and laid a hand on the back of Casey's head and stroked over it a couple times before he pulled away and left the living room.

* * *

Voight opened the front door just as Severide came up the porch steps and lightly commented, "Long time, no see."

Kelly looked up at him and asked, "What happened this time?"

"You know the drill, walk this way," Voight turned and led the way.

Severide followed him back to the living room and saw Casey passed out on the couch again. He knelt down beside the couch and looked Matt over to make sure he was alright.

"Casey."

Matt moaned something in his sleep, but his arm that had been hanging over the side of the couch raised up and found its way to wrap around his neck.

"Come on, Casey, wake up."

There was a small incoherent hum in Casey's throat as he pulled his arm away, then slowly opened his eyes and looked around the room.

"Again?" he asked in total confusion.

"You okay, buddy?" Severide asked.

Casey turned over onto his back and slowly took everything in, trying to remember what was going on, "Yeah...yeah I think so...what's going on?"

Severide didn't have an answer, he just reached his hands under Casey's back and hugged him, and felt Casey weakly reciprocate. And then Kelly felt another presence in the room, he turned back towards Voight and asked, "Do you mind?"

"Not at all," Voight answered nonchalantly, and pulled a chair from the dining room in to the living room and took a seat to watch them.

He knew it, he knew it, he knew it, he knew that bastard would do that. If he wasn't preoccupied with Casey, Severide would've said something about it.

"Casey, you okay?"

"Yeah..." Casey turned over and sat up on his knees and hugged him.

Even though Severide had been able to pick up on nothing from the last time this happened, somehow he felt a sense of peace this time, somehow he distinctly felt things were better now, but he couldn't put his finger on it.

"Come on," he told Casey, "I'll take you home."

He felt Casey shaking his head, "Nah, I'm good to drive, let's go." He let go of Kelly.

Severide got up, turned to Voight, and said with a huff, "I don't know what to say."

"Then don't say anything," Hank responded.

Kelly shook his head and headed towards the dining room. Casey got up from the couch, shook his head as if trying to clear it from a fog, and told the sergeant, "Thanks, Voight."

Hank stood up from the chair and told him, "You got this, Matt."

Casey looked at him, his eyes wider and more alert. In a sudden movement he leaned forward and hugged Voight, the sergeant returned the embrace and clapped a hand on his back.

"You're okay," Hank told him as they pulled away from one another.

Casey headed towards the front door and caught up with Severide on the porch.

"Everything okay?" Kelly asked.

"Yeah," Casey answered.

The two walked down the steps and towards their vehicles, and suddenly Casey turned towards Severide, "Kelly?"

"Yeah?" Kelly turned towards him.

Casey looked at him for several seconds, then slowly inhaled, then moved his head to the side, then slowly shook his head, "I'm sorry...I thought I could tell you...I really thought I could...but I just can't."

Severide looked at him and slowly nodded. "It's okay." He looked to the front and nodded, "Come on, let's go."

* * *

"It doesn't make sense," Kelly told Rhonda the first day after the next shift. He sat on one end of her couch and she sat at the far end with her legs crossed under her and her feet bare. "Two times in the last week Casey goes to Sergeant Voight in the middle of the night, Voight of all people, why? I have no idea. Presumably he goes to talk to him, what's there to talk to him about?"

"Kelly," Rhonda broke into his rant, "After Matt was attacked, you didn't bring me into it for three weeks, because you thought you could fix him yourself, right?"

"I never said 'fix', I thought I could help him," Kelly responded.

"And then you brought him to me...so are you really upset now because Matt's talking to someone else besides you _or_ is it because it's someone you _wouldn't_ pick for him?" Rhonda asked.

Severide shook his head, "Rhonda, it's too early in the morning for your word games."

"Okay, so try this, why does Casey going to Voight bother you so much?" Rhonda asked.

"The man tried to have Casey killed," Kelly said, "how could Casey ever trust him again?"

" _You_ accused Casey of killing Andy," Rhonda pointed out without so much as a hint of bias in her voice, she sounded as monotone as if she were giving the time of day. "What reason did he have to trust you again?"

Severide paused, then glared at her. "That's not fair."

"To whom?" Rhonda responded.

He still glared at her, but conceded, "Okay, fair point, but that's different."

"Since Sergeant Voight was released from prison, has he made any further attempts on Matt's life?"

"No."

"Has he harassed him in any way?"

"Not really."

"Stalked him?"

"No."

"Do you have any actual proof he still poses any threat to Matt?" Rhonda asked.

"...No..."

"Does Matt think he does?" Rhonda asked.

"No," Kelly answered.

"So if Matt's willing to move forward on this, what's the problem?" Rhonda asked.

" _Why_ would Casey go to Voight of all people?" Kelly asked, feeling very helpless by his inability to find an answer to that question.

"As opposed to you?" she asked.

"Well...yeah, I was right there."

"You were gone both times it happened, weren't you?" she reminded him.

"Okay so technically I wasn't there, he could've called me."

"Maybe it wasn't something he thought he could discuss on the phone," Rhonda suggested.

"Either way, he could've sent me a text, I would've come home," Severide told her.

"Perhaps he didn't think it was something he could discuss with you," she commented.

It was obvious that her comment had stung him. "So he talks to Voight about it instead?"

"Sergeant Voight _was_ involved somewhat in the investigation, correct?"

"Yeah."

"So if Matt would've had a question pertaining to the investigation, Voight would have the answers for that, wouldn't he?" Rhonda asked.

"I suppose so," Kelly huffed, "but why would he want to know about that? Cardoza's dead, it's over."

"But it's not for Matt," Rhonda reminded him.

Kelly sighed and reluctantly admitted, "I know. I really thought he would be by now...that's a stupid idea, isn't it?"

"It's what everybody wants," Rhonda said neutrally. "All victims of sexual assault want to reclaim their old lives before everything changed, before they saw the whole world differently...unfortunately it's just not reality. Matt could very well go on to put the worst of all this behind him, but there will _always_ be reminders for him."

Kelly shifted his gaze to the floor and blurted out, "I didn't do enough. I should've stayed home that night, then none of this would've happened."

"You don't know that, Kelly," Rhonda calmly responded. "Suppose Cardoza saw you go in first, then when Matt pulled up he decided to go with plan B, he goes up to Casey, blitzes him, throws him in the truck, takes him to a remote location, does what he wants with him, who would've known? Who could've stopped it?"

"So Casey's screwed either way," Kelly sniped, then clapped both hands over his mouth when he realized what he'd said.

"I'm saying it's possible his attack was inevitable, no matter what anybody did," Rhonda said. "That's one of the hardest facts to accept, sometimes it just doesn't matter what anybody does, what will happen will happen regardless."

"Oh boy am I glad _you_ didn't join the CFD," Kelly dryly commented.

"You see it, Kelly, every day, how many times do you show up on a call, you do everything right, and the victims still die?" Rhonda asked. "Some unforeseen complication nobody could predict."

Kelly grumbled something under his breath, no words were audible but it sounded like he was reluctantly agreeing with her.

Rhonda leaned forward and asked, her tone just taking on a hint of self assuredness in the answer, "Kelly, is it possible this is bothering you so much because maybe you're jealous?"

He blinked. "Of what?"

"That Casey would sooner go to Voight than you?"

Kelly leaned back and snorted, "Hoo boy, you're a real piece of work, you know that?"

"Well?"

"I don't...how do...there aren't even any words to answer that, it's a stupid question," Severide told her.

"Well, look at it from an outsider's perspective," Rhonda said, "you and Voight, both a couple of hotheads who aren't above or beneath doing whatever it takes to protect one of their own..."

"Rhonda," Kelly jabbed a warning finger in her direction, "I sure as hell hope you're not about to suggest that Casey sees Voight as a surrogate for me...because I am going to be _very_ pissed off if you do."

"I never said any such thing," she calmly responded.

"Smartass," he grumbled.

She waited a few seconds before posing the question, " _Why_ would that be your first assumption?"

"Okay, that's it, I'm not doing this anymore," Kelly said as he grabbed the pillow behind him and pressed it against his face.

Rhonda waited again, and then proceeded as if this was completely normal. "Are you worried Voight will hurt Matt again?"

Severide's response was muffled into the pillow but it sounded like a 'yes' was definitely possible.

"Do you think it could actually happen?" she asked.

Severide lowered the pillow and replied, "I don't know."

"Do you have any reason to believe it could happen?" she asked.

"Well...no," Kelly admitted.

Rhonda paused, then asked him, "Were you worried when you knew he was working Matt's rape investigation?"

"...No," Kelly said as he looked down again.

"Were you worried when Antonio called and said they had him?" Rhonda asked.

"No."

"Why not?"

"Because...I knew...I _thought_ anyway, there wasn't any way in hell Cardoza would get out..."

"And possibly you were hoping he'd get a Hank Voight special in the cage?" Rhonda asked.

Kelly closed his eyes. "I suppose so...I couldn't beat the hell out of him myself."

"So you're okay with Voight's tactics when it benefits you," Rhonda said.

"Casey," he corrected her.

"So it sounds like what we're looking at here is the worst person to be against you is also the best person to have on your side," she told him. "Do you agree with that statement?"

"Well..." Kelly thought, "at a choice between the two, you definitely don't want Voight pissed off at you."

"And how do you feel about the times 51 has had to work with him?"

"Not thrilled," he dryly remarked.

"But you've done it."

"Yeah yeah, I know, who ever thought Voight would turn out to be the lesser of two evils?" Kelly asked.

Rhonda looked at him and asked, "Do you trust Voight, at _all_ , Kelly?"

"Nope," he answered quickly.

"Why did you call him then when Matt was missing?" she asked.

"Because..." whatever he originally planned to say left him, and he was confronted with the facts, "I was worried about Casey."

"And you thought Voight might have some idea where he was," Rhonda nudged him.

"Yeah..."

"Why would you think that?"

"I don't know...I guess...just...kind of flashed back to the whole thing with Jack Nesbitt, if somebody had kidnapped Casey..."

"Voight would be able to track him down," Rhonda finished for him.

Severide nodded hesitantly.

"What did Voight say?" she asked.

Kelly thought back. "I told him that Casey was gone, I couldn't find him...he said Casey was with him, to come get him. He said he was okay."

"Did you believe him?"

Kelly closed his eyes, "I couldn't accept it until I saw him for myself."

"And was he?"

"A little out of it but he seemed to be."

"Nothing indicated Voight did anything to him?"

"No."

"And the second time Matt went to him?" Rhonda asked.

"That time, Voight called me...said to come pick him up, I thought he had to be joking."

"Did Matt talk about what happened that time?"

Kelly shook his head. "He just said he couldn't tell me."

"And that's a threat to you," Rhonda said, not asking even though it sounded more like a question.

"It's not a..." he cut off from what he was going to say, grumbled and shook his head. He looked at her and told her, "I don't have any idea what I'm doing, even now it seems every time I try and help Casey, I just do everything wrong."

"You think if you handled things better, he _would_ tell you more than he does," Rhonda suggested.

"He talks to you, he'll talk to Voight, but he says to me 'I can't tell you about it'," Kelly said. "So obviously I must be doing something wrong if he doesn't trust me."

"Oh, speaking of Nesbitt," Rhonda broke in, "did you ever get around to apologizing to Matt about the whole Rice thing?"

"Again with Rice," Kelly huffed, "are you ever going to drop that?"

"Are you ever going to apologize?" she replied, just a hint of knowing in her otherwise unreadable tone.

Kelly scrunched up his face and glared at her through one open eye and told her, "It's a good thing we're not together anymore, because I find you very unattractive right now."

Rhonda seemed to disregard his statement and instead told him, "Okay, Kelly, I'm going to have you try a new exercise today. I want you to close your eyes, and say to me what you would want to say to Matt, _if_ you could get your stupid pride out of the way."

Kelly chuckled at her comment. "Are you serious?"

"Come on, Kelly, you forget I know you, I know there's a lot more going through that head than you're willing to admit," she told him. "Just close your eyes and pretend Matt's here..."

She waited until he finally gave in and closed his eyes before she continued, "and it's just the two of you in the room, and you can finally tell him what's been on your mind all this time. Go ahead."

Even with his eyes closed, he told her, "Rhonda, this is stupid."

"What do you have to lose?" she asked.

"Alright," he grumbled.

There was a momentary pause as Severide worked himself up to actually doing this. He tried to visualize Casey being in the room, and Rhonda not being there. It didn't work, he could still feel her presence, feel her watching him. He tried to push past that, despite all the experiences he'd had over the years, baring his soul was still not one of his strong suits. It was one thing to run what he wanted to say by Rhonda, it was another to act as if he were actually in the room instead of her. He sighed uncomfortably as he thought back to Casey the first night he picked him up at Voight's, and the second time, and the night in between when Casey woke him up choking him, those wide eyes staring down at him. He also remembered Casey months earlier, all the blood, all the fury, all the pain, all the tears, all the explanations he knew he owed him but never offered, the times he'd tried, the times he just couldn't.

"I'm sorry," he started. There was a pause before he continued, "I'm sorry I came home too late that night, I'm sorry I couldn't stop what happened to you sooner than I did. I'm sorry I made you go to the hospital and be humiliated. I'm sorry I made you go to the police and tell them what happened. I'm sorry the cop who took your report treated you like crap and didn't believe you. I'm sorry that you thought you had to hide what was going on from the others. I'm sorry you didn't want us at the hearing, because you thought we'd hear something that would make us think differently of you, nothing could ever do that. I'm sorry I haven't always been a great friend and wasn't always there when you needed me. I know you don't hold grudges, but I also know you never forget. I'm sorry about all the stuff you're carrying around because you don't want to reopen old wounds. I'm sorry that you think there are things that you can't tell me about, but I'm also sorry there are things that I know I can't tell you about, and I know it's not because I don't trust you, just that it's safer not to open any new wounds, but it's hard for me to accept you don't tell me and it's not because you don't trust me. Maybe you don't. Maybe you don't have a reason to. I know I've had more than my fair share of idiot moments, I'm sorry about all the stuff I never apologized for, I hate it when we fight but I don't like to admit I'm wrong because I don't like to think I can be wrong. You've put up with me for over 12 years so you already know that. You're my best friend, I love you, I know I don't say it enough, I know I've done a lot of things wrong...and I know I've done a lot of things wrong _here_..."

As Severide talked, Rhonda shifted her gaze from him, to the dining room behind him, and watched with a cat-that-swallowed-the-canary smile as Matt Casey quietly tiptoed on bare feet as he entered the living room and crept up behind Severide, then swooped down and wrapped his arms tight around Kelly's chest and responded, "I suppose I forgive you", all of which drew a sudden shocked yelp from him as he opened his eyes to see what was going on. He turned his head and saw Casey staring down at him.

"Casey!"

"Boo."

A dozen different questions ran through Severide's mind all at the same time, the first one to work itself loose was, "How'd you get here?"

Casey maintained his hold on Severide and answered, "I parked a block down behind the houses and came up the back way."

Severide turned to look straight ahead at Rhonda, who merely smiled and explained, "I told Casey that you two spend most of your time telling me what you ought to be telling each other, so he agreed to join us in a group therapy session."

Casey finally let go of Severide and stood up straight, as Kelly tried to grasp what was just said, and asked, "Group therapy? Just the two of us?"

"It's a _small_ group," Rhonda replied, "would you prefer couples' therapy?"

Severide moved over from the end cushion to pull Casey down beside him and said, "Group of two, ready when you are, doc."

"It's really very simple, both of you have so much emotional baggage that you spend all your time telling the wrong people about, so you two are going to learn how to talk to one another about what's bugging you," Rhonda told them. "Now there are two ways we can do this, with me present as the moderator, or if you find that too awkward, I can go do something else while you two have it out. Though as much baggage as the two of you have, I could have my whole freezer defrosted before the first session's done with. The choice is yours."

Casey turned to Severide and coyly asked, "What was that you were saying about Rice?"

Severide managed a forced smile at Rhonda and told her, "You can go now."

"I think I hear my freezer calling me," Rhonda commented as she stood up. "Just scream when you're finished," she told them as she walked out of the room.

Both men watched as she left the living room, then Casey turned to Kelly and asked in a half whisper, "Is she really gone?"

Kelly just shrugged his shoulders, and tried to explain, "Look, Casey, about what I said..."

"It's alright, I get it," he said. "I'm sorry I sprung this on you, but Rhonda figured it was the only way to get you to talk."

"She's right, I never would've agreed to this if I knew you'd actually be here," Kelly responded.

"Hence the dilemma she seems to think we have," Casey replied with a small smirk on his face. "Now, _what_ was that about Rice?"

Kelly rolled his eyes and grumbled and told Casey, "I'm sorry I didn't listen to you about Rice, I should've known if your guys were checking on his story there had to be a reason."

All Casey said in response was, "It's about time."

Severide glared at him through the corner of his eye but said, "I know, I'm sorry I didn't get around to it sooner."

"Anything else?"

"You're enjoying this, aren't you?"

"Kelly Severide admits he's wrong? Oh yeah," Casey smirked.

"Okay, I guess I deserve that," he said. "I'm sorry I blamed you for Andy's death, I shouldn't have taken it out on you, I know it wasn't your fault."

"What about Heather?" Casey asked.

"And I'm sorry about Heather."

"Sorry about _what_ about Heather?" Casey asked.

Severide huffed in annoyance and answered, "I'm sorry I accused you of sleeping with her."

"Are you _really_ sorry or are you just saying that because _you_ wanted to sleep with her?" Matt asked him.

Kelly looked at him and responded, "I'm _sorry_ , Casey."

Casey merely nodded and took it in, and he told Kelly, "Apology accepted. I don't blame you for what happened to me, Kelly, there wasn't anything you could've done except what you did. I'm sorry that I can't tell you everything about what happened...I know you wouldn't tell everyone at 51, I know you wouldn't hold it against me...it's just too painful."

Severide looked at him with wide eyes full of curiosity and asked, "Why'd you go to Voight?"

Casey sighed and admitted, "I can tell Voight _part_ of it because I don't have to care what he thinks about me...I don't have to see him every day, I don't have to worry that it'll affect our relationship because we don't have one. I know it doesn't make sense...but it's safer to tell him because there's nothing at stake...for what it's worth, Kelly...he said I should tell you."

Severide did a double take. "What?"

"He's been on my case to talk to you instead of him," Casey answered, "I know you don't like him and I know you don't like me talking to him...but he thinks a lot about you, I can tell."

Kelly didn't have any idea what to make of that. He flashed back to that smile on Voight's face.

 _"You're Benny Severide's kid, right?"_

 _"Oh Benny."_

And that first time at Voight's house.

 _"Oh, Benny and I go back."_

"I don't like it because I remember what he did to you," Kelly told him.

"You think I don't?" Casey replied. "But look, if I can get past it, I would hope you could too."

"Casey...I know..." Kelly couldn't bring himself to repeat what he'd told Rhonda, even if Casey had already heard it, that he instinctively knew Voight wouldn't hurt Casey again. Despite everything they'd opened up about in the last ten minutes, it was just too awkward for him. "How do you trust him, after what he did?"

"We haven't had a lot of choices, have we?" Casey replied. "Besides, Rhonda's right, if he was going to try anything else he would've done it already."

"Casey..."

"Kelly, the man gave me his gun," Casey looked at him. "That time I went to his house and had it out with him over my report, he took out his gun and said either I retract my statement, or I shoot him, those were the only ways it all went away...why would he do that?"

Matt had never told that part of it to Severide, at the time his head was in such a fog, he wasn't even sure how he got home after that.

"What?" Kelly asked in disbelief.

"He _knew_ I couldn't shoot him," Casey said, "he knew I would do anything to stop him, but he knew I couldn't kill him. Despite everything that happened at the time, I think that somehow warrants trust."

Kelly blinked a few times as he tried to take that new information in.

"I can't explain it and I can't expect you to understand it, but if I wind up going to him again in the middle of the night, try not to take it personally," Casey said, "there're some things it's just easier to tell him about than you."

"Uh..." Kelly realized the full extent of what Casey probably heard while he was talking with Rhonda, and he was certainly very embarrassed about his comment about Voight as a surrogate for him, "maybe I need to clarify something I said earlier."

"Oh don't get me wrong," Casey seemed to somehow know what was on Severide's mind, "You and Voight _do_ have a few similarities... _stop_ looking at me like that, you do. Only good things, don't worry. But that's not it...I talk to him precisely because he's _not_ like you."

"Just tell me something, Casey," Kelly looked at him, "Is Rhonda right?"

"You mean do I feel _safe_ around Voight? I never thought about it, but I guess so. I know how it sounds..."

Severide shook his head, "It's not about what I think...I just want to know you're alright."

"And the other half of that question?" Casey asked.

Severide looked at him, "What other half?"

"Do I feel safe with you?" Casey asked. He nodded, "The answer's yes, and that's precisely why I don't tell you everything...I got too comfortable with you hovering over me the first time, I don't want that to happen again, it's not fair to you and in the long run it doesn't help me...I'm not trying to shut you out, Kelly, I want you to be able to move on with your life as much as I'm trying with mine, it just seems that won't happen if I keep telling you everything that's bothering me."

"Casey, I meant what I said before."

"I know, and that's the problem...I don't know how well _this_ idea is going to work, but I'm willing to give it a try if you are, and I hope it works so we don't have to keep talking about this _outside_ of these sessions."

"If we do, we do, that's all there is to it," Kelly told him.

Casey looked down at the floor self consciously, then he risked a glance up towards Severide and told him, "Thanks for saving my life."

Kelly couldn't think of any way to respond to that. He looked away for a minute, then something occurred to him and he turned back to Casey and told him, "And I'm sorry about Hallie."

Casey looked at him curiously, "What about Hallie?"

"I'm sorry I didn't do this." Severide reached over and pulled Casey into a hug, it was so sudden and tight that it knocked the wind out of Casey and for a second he couldn't even think.

Casey tried to ask what it was about, then it came back to him. In the hospital, when the doctor came out and broke the news. In that moment, the memory of everybody else being there with him just fell away, then suddenly it was Mills who came over and hugged him. That felt like a lifetime ago, he'd just about forgotten. It had never really occurred to him after the fact to question where the hell Kelly was. The memories came flooding back and Casey felt his throat getting tight with tears building up, he reached around Kelly and returned the hug, and clung to his best friend.

"I'm sorry I didn't do this a long time ago," Kelly told him.

Casey felt his chest tighten and in that moment, any and all words were beyond him.

* * *

Rhonda quietly stalked back to the living room to see how things were going, it had been quiet for a while, given Kelly and Matt's history she knew that wasn't necessarily a good thing but she also didn't think right now either one had it in them to choke the other to death during an argument. She poked her head into the living room and almost laughed.

Casey and Severide had fallen asleep sitting on the couch in each other's arms, Kelly's head was pressed back against the couch, Matt's head rested on Kelly's shoulder.

Rhonda couldn't suppress the grin on her face as she watched the two of them in silent amusement. She backed up from the dining room to the kitchen, and loudly slammed a cupboard door, which jerked the two firefighters awake. After the initial confusion of where they were and what was going on passed, they pulled away from each other and sat up straight on the couch.

"Well that freezer should be good for a couple more months," Rhonda said as she reentered the room, "so you guys get anywhere?"

Casey looked at Severide and answered, "Yeah, I think we did." He turned towards her and asked, "When can we come back for another session?"

Rhonda looked at him in surprise, "You're that anxious to talk to Kelly?"

"No, I just want to know when you're going to start insulting him," Casey answered.

Kelly looked at him, then threw his head back and laughed.

"Next shift's tomorrow, right?" Rhonda asked, "I can see you two on Thursday, say 2 o' clock."

Kelly was still grinning as he got up, "Thanks, Rhonda."

"Anytime, Kelly," the blonde woman said as she hugged him, then Matt.

Casey looked her in the eyes, "Thanks, Rhonda, I think this is going to help a lot."

She smiled at him, "Matt, we're always here for you, you know that."

He nodded.

She hugged him again and said in his ear, "And I suspect Voight will be too if need be."

He pulled back and told her, "That's still awkward to think about."

"I know," she replied, "but if it helps...firefighters generally subscribe to the philosophy of whatever works, right?"

Casey nodded. "Thanks."

The two lieutenants collected their jackets and headed out the door.

"You want to ride back with me?" Kelly asked as they walked down the steps.

Casey shook his head, "I gotta go around and get my truck. Hey Kelly."

"Yeah?"

"Why did you two break up?" Matt asked.

"I don't know, it just didn't work out," he said.

Casey looked back to the house and commented, "Would've worked out better than Renee."

"Not funny."

"And the other Renee."

"Knock it off."

"And Brittany."

"Cut it out," Severide elbowed him.

"If you put together _all_ the women you've been with in the last-"

"That's enough."

"I'm just saying, maybe you two wouldn't still be together, but at _least_ you two are still on good terms," Casey said. "That's more than can be said about most of the others."

"Point taken."

"Besides, even if you did blow it, she'd still be great to have for a roommate," Casey added with a mischievous smirk. "I still can't believe you never introduced any of us to her."

"It's just too awkward," Kelly told him, "she looks exactly like Shay, in a lot of ways she _is_ like Shay...I don't think they'd be able to handle it."

Casey realized something. "And you never would've brought me here if I hadn't been attacked."

Kelly looked at him sheepishly, it was obvious he was not proud of this fact.

"I'm sorry," he said. He'd seen what Rhonda had been able to do with Casey, even if everything that had happened _hadn't_ happened, it was obvious now that Casey still could've benefited long ago from having her for a friend if not a therapist.

Casey slowly nodded. "It's okay."

* * *

The next time Casey called Voight it was at 10 P.M. instead of midnight, a surer bet that the Intelligence sergeant wouldn't be in bed yet.

"Voight."

Casey froze for a second when he heard the gruff voice on the other end, but he quickly recovered, and explained as he sat down on the couch in the living room, "Nothing's wrong, I haven't been drinking, I haven't flashed back, I don't think I'm crazy, I haven't been checking the house for intruders this time."

Voight grunted like he always did, then added, "That's always good to know."

"I wanted to say...thanks for helping me."

"No problem, Matt. Severide gone again?"

"Yeah."

"Matt..."

"I'm talking to him," Casey replied in an annoyed tone, "it hasn't necessarily been easy but...I'm getting there."

"Good to hear."

"I guess what I wanted to say is...thanks for pushing me."

"Well somebody had to," Voight said lightly.

Casey got out a small chuckle at his comment. "Hank, can I ask you a question?"

"Sure."

"That day when you pulled out your gun...did you really think I'd shoot you?"

Through the phone he heard Voight sigh. "You're a good man, Matt, maybe too good. A guy who can't be bribed or intimidated, is not very likely to shoot a cop...I was banking you didn't have it in you, but I'll be honest, I was surprised when you walked away."

"Walk hell, if memory serves I ran out of there," Casey recalled. "But how could you possibly know?"

"You do this job as long as I have, you get to be a pretty good judge of people," Voight told him. "Sometimes I've been wrong, but not about you."

Casey felt the heat rising in his cheeks, he didn't know how to respond to that. "Thanks, Hank."

"You sure you're alright?" Voight asked.

Casey nodded, "I think so."

After his phone call with Voight, Casey decided to call it a night. He went around the house, checked the doors to make sure they were locked, turned out the lights, headed upstairs, turned on his bedroom light, only felt a need to check behind the door before he closed it. He looked to the closet door, and fought the urge to look inside just to make sure. He _knew_ nobody was there. He knew nobody _could_ be there because he'd been home all night. He closed the blinds, got undressed, pulled back the covers, turned out the lights, and crawled into bed, relaxing against the pillows and the soft sheets, hoping that sleep would come quickly.

Laying there in the dark, he looked around the room, saw everything encased in the shadows. It would be very easy to imagine there being somebody in the room concealed in the darkness, just waiting. Casey rolled onto his side and turned his back to the shadows, there was nothing there, nothing and nobody. Harris Cardoza was dead, he knew this for fact, he didn't have to see a body, blood evidence confirmed somebody had killed him, done the whole world a favor. It was easy enough to figure out while he was still awake, he just hoped he could still remember that when he woke up.

* * *

As Severide got out of his car, he checked his phone one more time just to make sure he hadn't missed any messages from Casey. Nothing. He hadn't heard from him all night. Every light in the house was out. Casey's truck was parked at the curb. Severide went up to the porch, tested the door, it was locked, used his key and went in. The whole house was pitch dark and quiet. For a moment, Kelly had a dreaded sensation of déjà vu. He slowly made his way from room to room keeping an ear out for any weird noises. He reached the kitchen, and flipped on the light. He was instantly blinded by the bright bulbs that lit up the whole kitchen, and immediately flipped it back off when he realized nobody was there. Now who was being paranoid?

All the same, as Kelly wearily climbed the stairs to get to his room, he listened for anything that sounded unusual, there was nothing.

"Casey?" he whispered as he reached the landing, "Casey?"

He headed over to Casey's room, the door was shut, the inside was quiet. Just to make sure, he turned the knob and pushed the door open, the room was dark, but he was able to make out the figure of Casey asleep in the bed, and heard a contented sigh of an exhale as the Truck lieutenant turned over in his sleep. Kelly smiled to himself and quietly padded over to the bed, he watched Casey while he slept, watched the slow, steady movements as his chest rose and dropped with his breathing. Severide softly patted Casey on the head, then leaned down and kissed him on the forehead. There was a change in the way Casey breathed, and he let out a startled yelp, which in turn drew a similar scream out of Severide, and Casey rolled over and sat up.

"Geez Kelly, you scared me to death!" Casey told him. "What's going on? What time is it?"

Kelly felt his heart racing in his chest but stayed calm and answered, "I didn't mean to get you up. I just thought I'd check in before bed."

"Oh," Casey exhaled, and looked slightly annoyed, but he felt the beating in his chest calm down and asked Severide, "You just getting in?"

Kelly nodded. "Yeah, I'm sorry I woke you."

Casey did a double take and looked around the room as if he realized something. What it was, Kelly had no idea.

"Sorry, Casey."

"It's okay," Matt responded, and he actually sounded genuine about it.

"You okay?"

"Yeah..." Casey looked relieved, "yeah, I'm fine." And he realized he was, no flashbacks, no nightmares, even this stunt Severide just pulled hadn't been enough to trigger him. He almost laughed.

Severide didn't get it, but he had a feeling that his presence would not be requested or probably even accepted tonight.

"Goodnight, Casey."

"Goodnight, Kelly."

Severide reached the door, and looked back. Casey pulled the covers back up, rolled over and settled on his side again. He heard a low, deep breath as Casey seemed to be settled down for the night again. Kelly smiled to himself, quietly pulled the door shut behind him, then headed up the hall to his own room. It might take longer than they'd thought to fully come to terms with what had happened, but he was convinced they'd already taken a few particularly large steps forward. And as long as Rhonda could tolerate both of them at the same time, he had a feeling they'd go much further.


End file.
